DIIA Blog

DIIA Faculty Development Specialist Leslie Jarmon received a grant from the Transforming Undergraduate Education program to support a University of Texas System innovative teaching initiative based in Second Life. Dr. Jarmon leads the nation’s first system-wide program to stimulate creative approaches to instruction, increase student access and success, and manage or reduce instructional costs.

The program will “use the virtual world environment to cultivate working communities of learning and discovery transcending the complex, interdisciplinary UT System, empowering students to become innovators and thought leaders throughout Texas, the U.S., and the world,” according to this week’s DIIA spotlight article by Michael Barrett.

The Chronicle of Higher Education picked up on the project here, and Dr. Jarmon was featured in a UT-Austin OnCampus accolade here.

Today’s Campus Technology relates that the Santa Clara University School of Law is recruiting students within the virtual world of Second Life. The Dean of Admissions’ avatar welcomes prospective students in an interactive workshop where they view an in-world video of the Dean and ask questions or chat among themselves.

“We believe we are the first law school in the United States to use Second Life to interact with prospective students,” said Julia Yaffee, senior assistant dean of external relations. “We need to meet prospective students where they are, and more and more, we find potential law students in various online arenas, including virtual worlds.”

DIIA is a leader in adapting emerging technology in service of higher education. For information about how DIIA uses Second Life as a teaching and learning tool, contact Leslie Jarmon at 232-3302. Jarmon will present a session on Second Life as part of DIIA’s Instructional Development series on Tuesday, March 3 from 1:00-2:30 p.m. in FAC 327. To register for this session, go here. To register for other DIIA instructional technology workshops, go here.

Avatar movement from East to West.

I remember it quite clearly while sitting in my apartment during my undergrad years at the turn of the century. Some of my friends were really into video games (as was I…still am) and one of them popped out with a word that was fairly unfamiliar to most. This “new” word Avatar was being tossed around the room in connection with characters in various games they were playing.

I immediately wondered how they knew that word since most of them came from Judeo-Christian backgrounds. I then proceeded to correct their pronunciation…

“You guys aren’t saying it right. It is said like uhv’taar.

A few of them looked at me like I had 10 heads. How did I know about this word that they had just come across?

The Sanskrit word Avatar that has only recently come into the Western consciousness has been around for thousands of years in the East and is still used as a common word among Hindus everywhere. I hear this word around DIIA all the time now due to the new craze of using Second Life and other virtual worlds in education. My first association with Avatar is still, and probably forever will be, with my Eastern roots and the Hindu stories my mom used to tell me as a child. I often wonder if people know where this word comes from so as my first post, I point you all to this page to bring in some sociolinguistics to the DIIA consciousness.