Piet Hut (IAS Princeton): Science and Scholarship in the Virtual World of Second Life: Research, Education, Outreach, and More

Abstract:

For the last two years, I have extensively explored the use of virtual worlds in my work as an astrophysicist, and also in my bore broadly interdisciplinary work.  Starting with Videoranch, using Active Worlds software, I moved on to Qwaq Forums, and a year ago to Second Life, currently the most popular non-game virtual world.  I co-founded two organizations in Second Life, MICA, the Meta Institute for Computional Astrophysics (see http://www.mica-vw.org/), and Kira (http://www.kira.org/) as a virtual branch of a real-world interdisciplinary institute that I had founded as a non-profit organization together with some colleagues 12 years earlier.  Both organizations are involved with the kind of activities that universities are traditionally focusing on, such as research and education, but there are novel components as well, from an enhanced emphasis on outreach to a switch away from teacher-student interactions toward more pear-based learning and research.