Sporting his Tulane T-shirt, an avatar representing Derek Toten explores a classroom in a 3-D virtual world on Second Life. (Image from Second Life)

Derek Toten doesn't know if Second Life will be the next Big Thing, but with more than nine million "residents" from around globe, the 3-D virtual world is something the university should be looking into.

On Tuesday (Sept. 25), the Innovative Learning Center will hold a symposium that Toten, director of instructional media, hopes will begin a campuswide conversation about Second Life.

"We want to introduce this technology to people and explore what is possible at Tulane -- what we want to do and what we don't want to do," says Toten.

Second Life, which has been an online presence since 2003, is a digital world filled with people, places and activities in which participants become residents by creating an avatar -- a virtual representation of themselves that interacts with the created world.

Toten, director of instructional media at Tulane, will be introducing the campus to the digital world of Second Life at a Digital Trends symposium on Tuesday (Sept. 25). (Photo by Paula Burch-Celentano)

According to Toten, Tulane Technology Services has purchased a number of virtual acres, which he likens to an island within Second Life. Currently the space is undeveloped, but Technology Services is working with consultants from the New Media Consortium, a nonprofit organization comprising more than 250 educational institutions, to design and build out the space.

"We will initially develop the Tulane island with basic services like meeting spaces, gallery spaces and an amphitheater," says Toten. There also will be "sandboxes" where participants can design their own structures or pursue other creative activities.

More obvious academic uses for Second Life include setting up gallery spaces to view art or 3-D chat rooms to support courses. It also has potential for student recruiting and can be a point of contact for students, parents and other Tulane constituents.

"This is an experiment that may have applications for any academic pursuit," says Toten.

The Second Life program, which will take place at 10 a.m. on Tuesday (Sept. 25) in room 309 of Howard-Tilton Memorial Library, is part of the Digital Trends symposium series and is open to all faculty and staff.