Second Life for archaeology, digital photography, and media and communication education - three case studies.

This article reports on three case studies of integrating Second Life (SL) into three disciplines: Archaeology, Digital Photography and Media and Communications. The studies are conducted by Beyond Distance Research Alliance at University of Leicester within a JISC founded research project called MOOSE: MOdelling Of Secondlife Environment (www.le.ac.uk/beyonddistance/moose/ ). MOOSE focuses on modelling the pedagogical aspects of student learning in groups in SL. We design, develop and pilot activities in SL (SL-tivities) that enable groups of students, represented as avatars, to achieve socialisation and engagement for more productive information exchange and knowledge construction. This article introduces three different approaches to use SL for three different disciplines. Within each case study, we demonstrate how SL can be used in a more productive way to enhance student learning the subject, describe the design of SL-tivities and development of artefacts within the University of Leicester’s Media Zoo island in SL (http://slurl.com/secondlife/Media Zoo/170/150/17), and discuss key results from research.