Second Life is a virtual world in which almost any situaltion can be created and experienced. Many education-related spaces now exist,  including the University of Leicester's Virtual Genetics Lab (created for the SWIFT project).

This is a general guide to setting up, and learning the basics of, Second Life, sufficient to allow you to visit any educational spaces in Second Life, including the Virtual Genetics Lab.

The guide shows you where to register for a (free) Second Life account, how to run the software and where to practice the basics of interacting in the virtual world. The process usually takes between 30 minutes and an hour.

You need to do the following:

1) Register for a free account. You can do this on any computer at the website:  https://join.secondlife.com/
(If you already have a second life avatar go straight to step 2).
After registering, you will be sent a confirmation email that you have to open and follow before you can log in to your new account.

Please make a note of your Username and Password as you will need it every time you use Second Life.

2) Decide if you want to use Second Life at your place of work or study, or at home.

At a University or business:

If you are at a University, other institution or business, you may need to check that your institution's firewall does not block the use of Second Life (many do, for security reasons).

You also need to have administrator rights to install the Second Life software, or your institution needs to make it available to you as part of the managed software they provide. (You may also be able to run it from a memory stick by copying the installed program from another computer, but you will still have to have access through the firewall.)

If there are no firewall issues, and you have full administrator rights to the computer, you should be able to follow the  "At home" instructions below.

At home:

If you are using a domestic broadband connection and PC or Mac, you can simply download and install the free software from:http://secondlife.com/support/downloads/

3) Run the Second Life program. You will see a login screen. Put in the username and password you registered with and paste the following into the "Start At" box:
Media Zoo/74/122/32
 

4) You are now in our Second Life training area (it should look like this; if it looks like a completely different place then log out and try again after 10 minutes or so, making sure you put Media Zoo/74/122/32 in the Location box).

The character in front of you represents yourself. Use the arrow keys (or the letters A, D, W and S) to move around. Follow the instructions on the notice in front of you.

Please walk around the maze, completing all the tasks in order.

That's it! You're now all ready to explore. If you have a web address starting "slurl" or "maps.secondlife", just click on that, it should offer "Teleport" within Second Life - click on that to take you to the ne area.

To get to the Virtual genetics Lab, you can use this:
http://tinyurl.com/SWIFT-lab
or simply follow the red arrows from the training area to the lab. Just outside the lab (the one with a grey floor) are notices explaining how to install the HUD and how to use the equipment.

If you have any questions, check out the FAQ, or you can email  swift@le.ac.uk


You may also be interested in some information on privacy and safety in Second Life