Virtual history: a socially networked pedagogy of enlightenment

TLDR: In this article, a virtual reconstruction of eighteenth-century London in Second Life and a semester project requiring student recreation of 3D social spaces like coffee houses and gardens tested the uses of social networking tools to teach research methods and build disciplinary knowledge.

Abstract: Background: Twenty-first-century undergraduates often find eighteenth-century culture difficult to access and, influenced by popular assumptions about the period in current media theory, characterise the century as individualist, underestimating the cultural significance of social networking in literary and political history. Purpose: This study set out to teach the history of social networking as culturally significant in the production of literary texts during the eighteenth century as well as to demonstrate the intellectual and compositional potential of today's social networking technologies. A virtual reconstruction of eighteenth-century London in Second Life and a semester project requiring the student recreation of 3D social spaces like coffee houses and gardens tested the uses of social networking tools to teach research methods and build disciplinary knowledge. Sources of evidence: Evidence of student learning outcomes is provided by three undergraduate courses in eighteenth-century culture, with...