20 Networks Issue 11, July 2008 Immersed in Learning Project Denise Doyle (Second Life: Wanderingfictions Story) (D.Doyle@wlv.ac.uk) Senior Lecturer in Digital Media University of Wolverhampton Prelude Second Life, the online environment or ‘virtual world’ created by Linden Lab, was launched in 2003 with barely 1,000 users (Rymaszewski, 2007, p. 5). The number of residents is now over 9 million, or at least of those who hold a Second Life account. Following the logic of the ‘real’ world, it follows (most of) the rules of our Cartesian space, providing earth, sky, water, gravity, day and night, moon and sun on a three- dimensional networked grid. Second Life has its own ‘time’ – SL time, set to the equivalent of Pacific Coast ‘earth’ Time. The sun rises at dawn and when it sets the moon rises. If you are a landowner you can set the sun/moon cycle as you choose, based on a 24-hour clock cycle. Or you can keep a constant ‘nature time’ – always midnight, always sunset, always sunrise. The ‘Force Sun’ command enables you to override an area’s settings wherever you are, or rather where your avatar is. It is possible to have any representation of yourself, your avatar, though most choose to represent themselves in human form. Place in Virtual Worlds: Creating Kriti In July 2007, the University of Wolverhampton purchased an island on the Second Life Grid to support research in the Digital Media area of the School of Art and Design. A question that the research initially set out to explore was the potential use of a virtual world such as Second Life as a learning and teaching tool in the undergraduate teaching programme, given that the students in this area could be considered to be ‘digital natives’. In ‘Virtually U’, Jenning and Collins (2008) identify two types of virtual campus, that of the Operative Virtual Campus, as illustrated by the INSEAD island, and the Reflective Virtual Campus, as illustrated by the archipelago of islands developed by Ohio University. The Operative Campus functions as a working campus, where learning, research and communication take place completely in a virtual environment that could not exist in the real world. In contrast, the Reflective Campus affirms the institution’s spirit and reproduces its physical campus in the virtual world. In its initial development, Kriti Island followed the Reflective Virtual Campus model. Support was given by in-world entrepreneur and virtual world architect, Luna Bliss, who developed the Welcome Area and the waterfall backdrop to the area. Since then, the Amphitheatre area has been developed by Denise and fellow colleague, Jim Davies, to enable the showcasing of Time-Based Media work. Supporting Creative Practice (in Digital Media) Inspired by the work in Leeds, both at Leeds College of Art and Design on the HND Design for Multimedia course, and at Leeds Metropolitan University, to support a range of Studio Practice-based degrees in Fine Art and Graphic Design, all three levels of the Digital Media programme have been introduced to the virtual space on Kriti Island. Further development