Harvard Law in Second Life [en]

[fr] Un cours de la prestigieuse Harvard Law School est en train d'avoir lieu en partie à l'intérieur de Second Life. Quand je parle de Second Life comme outil/média éducatif, c'est à des choses comme ça que je pensais. Je suis allé y faire un tour, j'ai parlé avec une des instigatrices du projet, et je compte bien essayer de suivre en tous cas une partie de ce cours, qui a lieu les lundis et mardis.

By chance, I picked up a link to today’s RocketBoom in the #wordpress IRC channel (thanks, twidget). I don’t often watch RocketBoom, but the new presentator (en?) had a nice British accent, so I watched the whole thing.

A Harvard Law course in Second Life caught my attention. I watched the trailer, and decided to hop in and see for myself. I’ve been telling people around me that Second Life provides opportunities for education that we can barely yet imagine. I’m glad to see that it’s starting to happen. Watch the trailer for yourself [10.5Mb].

Inside the Second Life lecture hall (a replica of the real Harvard one, from what I understood) I chatted a while with Rebecca (one of the instigators!) and a student, LZ.

I learnt that the class was open to “public” (“at large”, they call it), and I’m very tempted to participate. I missed the first classes though, yesterday and today, but the wiki contains a lot of information and is supposed to give links to the lecture videos (haven’t found those, I’d be glad if somebody can point me to them). A lot of reading material is online. They also have a 20-minute introduction to Second Life but Flock can’t find the missing plugins I need to view it. Damn!

So, anyway, had to let you know about this. I think it’s exciting!

10 thoughts on “Harvard Law in Second Life [en]

  1. Hi Stephanie,

    Nice to meet you in-world this afternoon. I wanted to point you to where you can see the lecture videos. We (meaning whoever wants to) are maintaining a wiki that presents the course materials week by week. For each week there is a page that will have the lecture videos along with class notes, links to the readings, notes on the readings, and whatever else people see fit to post. The page for the first week (which is the only week we’ve had so far) is here: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/cyberone/wiki/Weeks_Pages/Week1#Class_Notes

    Best,
    Rebecca

  2. Hi Stephanie,
    The only plugin I can think of that might be missing to play the SecondLife tutorial is RealPlayer 10. It’s a free download at http://www.real.com – you don’t need the plus or premium or “14-day free trial” versions, just the basic free player.

    If the video doesn’t play and you get an error about the file type being unassigned
    – start RealPlayer manually
    – go through menus: Tools, Preferences, Content, Media Types
    – if you don’t want to make RealPlayer your universal media player, then find under the manual selections, scroll down until you see “Other Media” and then find “Real Time Streaming Protocol.” Make sure that is checked.

    The lecture videos are available several different ways. They are listed and linked at http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/cyberone/course-materials/lecture-videos/

    Good luck!

    -Kriss Barnhart
    Harvard Extension School Distance Education
    Producer for LSTU E-118 “CyberOne: Law in the Court of Public Opinion”

  3. I went to Cambridge, MA, some day and visited the campus. All what I get was a purple cap with a large H on it. That’s all. Hope my son could go for a DBA or a PhD over there.

  4. Stephanie,

    Avoid Real Player like the plague! If you have to use something to view Real Player files, consider Real Alternative in its place. For one thing, your viewing habits will be kept anonymous and won’t be transmitted to spybots or anyone else.

    Other than that, thanks for the trackback.

  5. Stephanie,

    Avoid Real Player like the plague! If you have to use something to view Real Player files, consider Real Alternative in its place. For one thing, your viewing habits will be kept anonymous and won't be transmitted to spybots or anyone else.

    Other than that, thanks for the trackback.

  6. Hi Stephanie,

    My name is Rachel Nolan and I am a Harvard undergraduate reporting for the Crimson on this new class/phenomenon. I was wondering if you would be free at any point tomorrow for an interview on your thoughts on the class, whether or not you decide to take it?

    Thanks!
    Rachel

  7. Hi Rachel, I really would have liked to, but for reasons outside my control I haven’t been able to come to the class this week. Next week I’ll be travelling and stuck in bloggy conferences, but I’ll hopefully be showing up the week after that.

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