Lectures in Second Life

Yesterday SHTM held its first virtual Professor-for-a-day in the PolyU virtual campus. Prof Patti Shock from Harrah Hotel College at University of Nevada, Las Vegas, gave a unique lecture from the USA to Hong Kong students in PolyU. At 9.30am Hong Kong time, Prof Shock joined us at 5.30pm in Las Vegas to make a presentation on Marketing & Promotion Strategy for Meetings.

Using the virtual world of Second Life Prof Shock was able to give a live talk with powerpoint presentation in the virtual campus. Students both in the lecture theatre in Hong Kong as well as virtually from their laptops elsewhere were able to join the session. After a 40 minute presentation, students asked questions about virtual meetings, marketing strategies and promotion, and feedback and further discussion took place.

Students were also asked to give their feedback to this virtual lecture, and 20 percent found it a 'very interesting experience' with the remainder saying it was 'interesting' and 61 percent said they enjoyed virtual learning. Comments on the experience included, "It eliminates the time and geographical barriers, especially useful for the meeting industry where time and cost is a major concern...once a semester is enough for a virtual lecture, it would be boring if we had a virtual lecture every week...human interaction cannot be replaced."

This was the first time SHTM has used Second Life for a lecture, which demonstrated the ability to bring together teachers and students from two continents in one classroom. On 15 April we will hold a virtual conference with an event planner from the USA giving a demonstration of how virtual meetings and conferences take place.

Second Life is a Multi User Virtual Environment (a virtual world) where the users or residents create the content and activities. It is currently being used or tested by over 400 universities around the world, and SHTM/PolyU is the first in Asia to develop a full campus and offer a number of courses in Second Life. We are also collaborating with other universities overseas and departments in PolyU to pilot new teaching ideas and develop best practices in teaching and learning in virtual worlds.