I try my best to be available to my student advisees. I do the office hours thing, share email and phone #s and give them my IM name. Today, however, was different — and could hint at things to come. I met a student in my office in the Cybrary City in Second Life for a few minutes of chat about the course he’s taking with me and about his library job. And it was the student, Kyle Jones, who suggested it.
One thing we discussed was what might happen with Second Life and libraries in the future. I was happy to point him to Brian Mathews’ article that LISNews covered:
http://campustechnology.com/articles/50318/
The two academics want to develop the space as a resource for students to burnish their digital design skills and as a place to use just as a creative outlet. “The premise is that since so many of our students use digital design tools for class work, they can also benefit from exposure to Second Life,” Matthews wrote.
“Maybe SL isn’t sustainable long-term, that’s fine, we can just move to another virtual environment. My personal feeling about technology is that everything you learn can be applied elsewhere, therefore the more you know the better.”