With Armistice Day fast approaching a JISC project team has taken an unusual approach to ensuring that people continue to learn about the First World War.The First World War Poetry Digital Archive and the Learning Technologies Group at Oxford University have collaborated on an exciting new venture in the 3D virtual world Second Life to simulate areas of the Western Front 1914-18. The team believes this is the first time anything of its kind has been done on Second Life.
Visitors to the virtual trenches can explore digitised archival materials like poetry manuscripts, letters and diaries from the major poets of the First World War as they walk around a training camp, a trench network and No Man’s Land dressed as a soldier or a nurse. The terrain is waterlogged and difficult to navigate, rife with rats and littered with poppies; moving nearer to the front line the clamour of shell blasts and artillery fire becomes louder and louder.
The resources include works by Wilfred Owen, Isaac Rosenberg and Vera Brittain, along with contextual primary source materials. These materials have been supplemented with new interpretative content and a spectrum of interactive tools and tutorials, streaming video and audio effects.
The artefacts have been drawn from the highly successful First World War Poetry Digital Archive, launched in 2009 to mark the 90th anniversary of the end of the war. By placing them in an online virtual model the collection is made even more useful and engaging to a range of different user groups across UK education sectors, research communities and the heritage industry.
Ben Showers, digitisation programme officer at JISC, said:
“The First World War Digital Poetry Archive is constantly pushing the boundaries of what it means to be an academic archive, and now users are able to interact with the collections and materials. JISC funding for this additional virtual environment means students, researchers and everyone interested in this material can collaborate and become immersed in the world of the Western Front to experience the immediate context of these manuscripts and poems like never before.”As guests explore the simulation, they can listen to the voices of veterans recounting their experiences of the war, watch original film footage from the time, and learn about life on the Western Front. Within this context they can encounter some of the most powerful poetry in English literature by handling the original manuscripts, turning the pages of the poet’s war diaries and letters, and listening to readings.
For more information see: http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/secondlife
