Rob Knop's Gratuitous Virtual Worlds Page

In the last few years, I've become very interested in the human communication and educational potential of virtual worlds such as Second Life. After leaving my assistant professor job at Vanderbilt, I worked for Linden Lab for just under two years. Now that I'm at Quest University, I keep intending to get involved with development of OpenSim. In particular, I have a fantasy about being able to build a very open-ended virtual physics lab that might be useful in teaching an introductory physics course.

Second Life accounts are free, as are accounts on many OpenSim grids such as OSGrid.

The Meta-Institute of Computational Astrophysics (MICA)

This is an entirely in-world astrophysics institute, founded primarily by Piet Hutt of Princeton, together with some collaborators of his (who work on N-body simulations) and some other astronomers. It's notable because it's not the metaverse extension of a real-world organization, but one that exists entirely in the metaverse. Most months, I give a popular talk as a part of a series entitled "Dr. Knop Talks Astronomy".

Giving a Presentation in Second Life

Some tips, as well as the mechanics of getting slides uploaded, for giving a presentation in Second Life.