WEB EXCLUSIVE

You hear Cris Crissman before you see her.

The assistant professor’s dark high heels click loudly on the surface of the island as she approaches, and as she does, she’s hard to miss. You can see the pink highlights in her black hair from far away. She’s wearing a dark “dress-to-succeed” suit and pink-framed glasses.

She looks about as authoritative as a Second Life avatar can be, and in an in-game interview Monday night, she talked about the reactions of her students after introducing them to “Bookhenge.” The structure, located on the College of Education’s space in the Wolflands, will serve as a virtual classroom for her students in Teaching Literature for Young Adults.

Check out Tyler’s blog entry here.

Surrounded by tall moonlights bearing book covers from middle school classics like Maniac Magee and The Giver, Crissman said she was pleased at the reaction to her video tour of the island.

“I was amazed tonight,” she said. “I just sat back and watched. Their eyes got so big.”

She said she has 18 students in the graduate-level class, ranging from their early 20s to their late 50s.

“Most of them were going, ‘That is so cool,'” Crissman said. “I only had one student who said she got a little seasick. I told her she didn’t have to fly.”

After hearing about the Second Life project, Crissman said she jumped at the chance to “use virtual to enhance actual.”

“It’s never been as satisfying to discuss books online as in the classroom,” she said. “If you’re going to have a virtual conversation, you have to have a virtual body.”

And Mike Cuales, a DELTA senior multimedia specialist, said that’s exactly why the program is so appealing.

“One of the big challenges with distance education is to have that personal connection with students and faculty you never see,” Cuales said. “People get attached to their characters and they have a connection with other avatars. That’s solving one of the challenges.”

Crissman said the first class assignment is for students to create their own avatars – and she’s imposed no restrictions on the task.

“I’m telling you they are ready to play,” Crissman said. “A lot of them have already started talking about how good they’re going to look.”

And although she’s excited about the potential, she said she still might need to work on a system for identifying avatars with their real-world students.

“I hadn’t thought about that,” she said. “I’ve got to remember 36 names.”