The Caledonian Academy

We are pleased to announce a new Learning Communities event:

March 8th 2008: Academy Futures Room at 3pm (tbc)

Sian Bayne: Learning in a strange space: Second Life at the University of Edinburgh
Second Life is an environment which is both alluring and problematic when used as an educational space. I will be talking about some of the ways in which we are using Second Life for teaching and learning on the University of Edinburgh’s online MSc in E-learning, in particular how it works to give our distance students a sense of community and presence. I will give a brief tour of ‘Holyrood Park’, our in-world teaching space, and describe the rationale behind its design. I’ll then go on to talk about student reactions to Second Life and to consider what this shift into another ‘reality’ might mean for us as learners and teachers. I will draw in particular on the idea of Second Life as an ‘uncanny’ space, thinking about how it might function as a learning environment which nurtures a creative sense of dissonance, troublesomeness and ‘strangeness’ in both learners and teachers.

Dr Sian Bayne
Sian Bayne is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Education at the University of Edinburgh, Programme Director of the M.Sc in e-Learning, co-convenor of the Ideas in Cyberspace Education symposia and Principal Investigator on the research strand of the National Museums Online Learning Project. Sian is interested in how internet technologies subvert, challenge and bring into question the process and project of higher education. At present, this research is focused around social media and the ways in which online higher education and lifelong learning are engaging with it.