SHE tutorials: Second Life
Video guides to our Second Life islands
E-learning at UWE island
Orientating yourself on E-learning at UWE island
What is an avatar?
An avatar (अवतार, from the Sanskrit word for "descent") is a computer user's representation of him/her self or alter ego, whether in the form of a three-dimensional model used in computer games, a two-dimensional icon or even a text construct found on some of the early systems.
However it manifests itself, it’s an object representing the embodiment of the user. In your avatar form you can walk and fly around, text chat and talk to other users, and build and interact with things. You can make your avatar look however you like, and you're not even restricted to being human!
From a learning point of view, one of the real benefits of virtual worlds is their ability to enable you to experience simulations of events that would be impossible, dangerous or unethical to organise in real life, but that you will encounter in your practice.
Accident investigation is a good example of this, where we can pull apart an accident, play it backwards and forwards and use it as the basis for practising the data collection, analysis, sense-making and decision-making activities that make up an accident investigation.
How to create a Second Life avatar
Many of our simulations (and our MA Education in Virtual Worlds) use Second Life (SL) as their virtual world home. Although we use all kinds of virutal worlds, the instructions below relate to setting up an avatar in Second Life.
There are two steps to being able to use SL:
- First you have to create an account and choose your avatar name and look.
- To set up your avatar account in SL simply go to the Second Life website and follow the joining instructions. The process is completely free of charge.
- Then you have to download a viewer onto your computer to be able to access the virtual world.
- You’ll want to be able to use SL from your own computer, so you’ll need to download the viewer from the SL website.
- If you click on the help link at the top of the SL home page you can check the recommended technical specification for computers running SL.
Opening the viewer and visiting our SL island
Once your account is created and the viewer is installed on your machine you can:
- Open the viewer and then type your username and password into the boxes on the bottom left of the screen.
- In the box to the right that asks where you want to appear, type Elearning at UWE and you will land on the central hub on one of our islands.
- From there you’ll be able to look around and explore. There are lots of signs and orientation resources to help you in the hub.
Page last updated 12 December 2012