First World War Poetry Digital Archive
The First World War Poetry Digital Archive and the Learning Technologies Group at Oxford University have collaborated on a JISC-funded project in Second Life to simulate areas of the Western Front in the 1914-18 conflict.
There is a description of the project, plus a video on YouTube showing some of the Second Life areas, features and a small sample of the substantial collection of audio material:
However, it’s more fulfilling to explore the environment in Second Life itself. Go in, wander, listen to some of the audio of the poems being read and descriptions (by soldiers) of conditions there. Try on a uniform, and click on various items around the simulation. In Second Life it can be found here:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Frideswide/219/199/646/
To quote from the news item:
Visitors to the virtual trenches are given a unique immersive experience where they can explore a training camp, dressing station, a trench network and No Man’s Land. 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.
… and …
At the end the visitor is teleported out of the trenches to a teaching area. Here they are asked to consider the memory of the war, and to confront their own prejudices and stereotypes – was the war really all about trenches, mud, and rats, or are their other aspects to it that we now need to consider? Should it only be remembered as mass slaughter, a gross act of futility, or more a collective act of unparalleled heroism that ended ultimately in a victory for Britain and its allies?
There is a splendid pool of high quality screenshots from this simulator on Second Life.
