Cardinal Island Tour

.What is a 3D virtual environment and how do I get to our campus in Second Life?

A virtual environment is any technology that allows us to communicate other than physically face-to-face. Books and art were early forms, followed by the telephone and television, email, the Web, text chat, and modern social media. 3D virtual worlds are the latest technology that converge many of the previous technologies. You are represented by an avatar in a virtual environment. In email your avatar is an address.  In social media you may be represented by a photo and your name.

In 3D virtual worlds you create a 3D avatar over whose characteristics and actions you have almost complete control. Second Life, like Facebook and other social media, is owned by a private company and you must create an account to access it. Most social media are accessed via the Web, which is accessed by software called browsers. At least one browser likely came with your computer because of the ubiquitous use of the Web today, and many people download other browsers they might like better. 3D virtual worlds are accessed through different browser-like software as well, and you must download it (about 25MB) to access this world. 3D world viewers sponsored by Second Life can be found at http://secondlife.com/support/downloads/.  

To visit our Second Life campus you must create an avatar. You do this at https://join.secondlife.com/. Select one of the 11 avatars you see here that you can live with until you can make changes. Personalize it with a name that will serve as your account name (username) and the name people will call you in Second Life. Complete creating your account and enter the virtual world.

When you enter the virtual world of Second Life you will be in a general orientation area on an island reserved for new users where you can learn basic skills to help you interact with others and with the world. Try a few of the exercises and talk to someone and when you are ready to visit our campus island, just one of 30,000 plus islands and mini-continents that make up Second Life, click on ‘World’ in the Menu Bar at the top and find ‘World Map’ and click on it (or use Ctrl+M). In the green-highlighted box type in “UIW Cardinal” and click the ‘Find’ button next to the box. Then click the ‘Teleport’ button at the bottom that becomes active.

Exploring ‘UIW Cardinal’ and the Feik School of Pharmacy

Congratulations! You should now be on our campus in Second Life. Click to go to the next page to learn how to explore UIW Cardinal and Feik School of Pharmacy on our virtual campus.