Press Release
Harvard Extension and Law Schools Offer Course in a 3-D Virtual Environment
September 12, 2006
Cambridge, MA — The Harvard Extension School and the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School announce the offering of CyberOne: Law in the Court of Public Opinion, the first class at Harvard University to be offered in part in Second Life, a 3-D virtual environment.
Co-taught by Professor Charles Nesson, Rebecca Nesson, and Gene Koo, CyberOne: Law in the Court of Public Opinion turns law and Harvard toward the creation of our future in a networked information economy. “CyberOne models a university relationship with the public of open-access,” says Professor Nesson. “Our class is itself an argument for open access and its expression.”
CyberOne is being jointly offered this fall through the Harvard Law School and the Harvard Extension School. Course video, lecture, and project materials will be freely available in Second Life to anyone with an Internet connection. The Berkman Center, in conjunction with Cambridge Community Television (CCTV), will also be broadcasting select video on CCTV.
Says Rebecca Nesson, who will lead the course in Second Life, “Second Life offers the opportunity for a greatly enhanced distance education experience.” Students taking the course through the Harvard Extension School will be meeting weekly with their instructors and fellow students in Second Life for usual classroom activities as well as innovative projects that make use of the myriad possibilities of the Second Life environment. “Our students will be learning about virtual worlds while experiencing their class in a virtual world. It will be an exciting education for all of us.”
According to Michael Shinagel, Dean of the Harvard Extension School, “We are pleased to be working with the Berkman Center in offering CyberOne as one of our 100 distance courses this year and we look forward to bringing what we learn from it into our other online offerings.”
In the grant proposal to the Harvard Provost’s Office, Profressor Nesson explained that the “inclusion of the Harvard Extension School in this project is an acknowledgement that, among Harvard’s schools, it is the one that has made the most progress and possesses the greatest expertise in making Harvard’s content accessible to an online audience.”
CyberOne represents convergence of the Berkman Center’s and the Extension School’s ongoing processes of pedagogical innovation and experimentation, with inquiry into openness, new technologies and related policy, learning and social media.
Through distance education at the Harvard Extension School anyone in the world can sign up to experience a virtual Harvard education. These courses are uniquely delivered via streaming video, giving students a sense of actually being in a Harvard classroom. They are taught by distinguished Harvard professors, lecturers, and affiliates as well as other notable individuals from area universities and practitioners in the field. The 100 courses are offered in a variety of subjects and include 24 Harvard College courses videotaped exclusively for online viewing by Harvard Extension School students.
The course is supported by a grant from the Provost’s Fund for Innovation in Instructional Technology and by the resources of the Harvard Law School and Harvard Extension School.
Press Contact
Linda Armstrong Cross
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(617) 495-2924
linda_cross@harvard.edu