Director Frances Crawford said Second Life, the online tutoring social network, is another advantage offered to students and faculty and the latest addition to the writing center.
Second Life targets online students and those with a tight schedule; it is identical to face-to-face tutoring because of its abilities.
Adding to the assistance of the new writing center, such as help with essays, grammar, sentence structure and MLA, Second Life is a social network controlled by tutors from writing centers worldwide and available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Crawford said all students need to download the program at esmgsl.com, which stands for education server management group in Second Life.
Teachers will have access to student assistance items.
For example, a student can create a virtual note card to post a paper and receive help from a tutor; this way, a student can be at home and still receive help through chat.
Tutors also can pull items from a "virtual inventory" list, such as a PowerPoint Presentation, to better explain questions.
Virtual dry erase boards, where students and tutors can converse online and explain questions, are also available.
Tutors can pull up as many boards as needed to describe one's errors or answer questions visually.
Crawford said tutors can have more than one session at a time to better serve those online; they also can have private conversations, where those online surrounding the group will not be able to hear, if they chose.
Much like being in an actual tutoring session, classrooms are also available where the tutor can sit next to a student.
This college, however, is not the only one to use this server, Crawford said. Many universities use the server; there can be from 70,000 to 100,000 surfers worldwide at any given moment.
On the site, there is also a virtual library for those being tutored to do research.
Crawford said even though it is a controlled environment, people do need to be at least 18 to sign up.
Though it is used as a tutoring site, Second Life has other uses.
There surfers can "fly" to an island called France and see the Eiffel Tower or to another named Edgar Allan Poe and see what it would be like to be in one of his poems.
There are also live music and watch movie showings.
"There's really almost nothing you can't do there," Crawford said.
She also said the difference between Second Life and the real world "is in the real world, you can't TP (teleport) yourself home."
To register, students need to make an hour-long appointment with the writing center.
The hour is requested to create the account and an avatar while they learn the basics, such as transferring documents to the virtual lab and teleporting themselves.
Crawford advises those who register to use their own first name for that avatar, then choose a last name, and make sure to make note of it.
The program is a server that can only be used on campus computers but can be placed onto a flash drive to use elsewhere.
For more information, call 486-1433.
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