Satya Murthy

The mission of The Guildhall at SMU is to provide the world’s premier education and training center for development, and to serve as a focal point for the video game industry and community. The Guildhall at SMU is a place, a faculty, a student body, and a vision shared by experienced game development leaders and aspiring professionals.

Excerpt from:
Lecturer/Software Development – Guildhall at SMU Dallas (Plano), TX, USA

Media Credit: Sholten Singer – ony Szwilski, environmental engineering and science professor, demonstrates an Internet program that allows students to simulate mine safety scenarios.

The line between virtual and real world is becomming more blurred when teaching mine safety.
Marshall University College of Information Technology and Engineering has developed a program via Second Life, a free Internet program that allows users to create any conceivable virtual world. The virtual world is an island equipped with classrooms, meeting rooms and a virtual mine to teach safe mining practices.
Students can attend class in the virtual world using an avatar registered through Second Life. Currently, a graduate course called Advances in Internet Based Virtual Training, Learning and Collaboration Technology is being taught in this virtual world. A plan is in the works to offer an undergraduate version of this course.
"We have a multi-faceted project and one of the principal objectives is to produce the next generation of mine safety technology," said Tony Szwilski, environmental engineering and science professor and director for Environmental, Geotechnical and Applied Sciences.
Adjunct engineering professor Jack Smith and computer science students developed the virtual world. He and Swzilski have been working the project for approximately two years.
The virtual world is also used to conduct meetings with Mine Safety and Health Administration in Beckley.
Szwilski said one of the new ways to improve mine safety training is by using the Internet.
The virtual mine is two levels and has parts that regulators required be included. One of those devices is a refuge chamber, which protects miners from harmful situations, such as a gas leak.
One of the simulations used in Second Life is a roof collapse. Students have to figure out how to rescue a trapped miner. One of the safety tools used is a breathing apparatus. One student is placed in a safe spot while the other four look for the trapped miner.
The program helps accomplish a great objective.
"Our objective is to have the virtual world identical to the real world," Szwilski said.
"It’s good for education, collaboration, and some training," Szwilski said.
Kristen Hainkel can be contacted at hainkel@marshall.edu.