Virtual Worlds and Second Life
Although it is often considered a very new and somewhat controversial eLearning tool, Virtual Worlds have actually existed for over 20 years (Dalgarno, Lee, Carlson, Gregory, & Tynan, 2011, p. 10). Despite this, research and full scale deployment of Virtual Worlds in Education is still very much in its infancy. In a recent study conducted of over 90 reports, academic papers and websites from around the world, Duncan, Miller and Jiang (2012, p. 10) found that around 60% of the studies were still in the experimental stage, 3% had been deployed and the rest were still under evaluation. What this does point to, however, is that many institutions are currently assessing the potential that Virtual Worlds could play in both the traditional and non-traditional classroom.
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There are currently over 2,000 Virtual Worlds available for a variety of purposes (Gregory, 2014) and they consist of both standard Virtual Worlds, for example the Sims, where users can also enter them offline, and Multi-User Virtual Environments, such as Second Life (Duncan, Miller, & Jiang, 2012). The unifying requirement, however, is that the user must create their own avatar to enter into the world in order to interact with others.
The excitement of Virtual Worlds such as Second Life, which is deemed by the Centre for Learning and Performance Technologies as the “top Virtual World for educational use” (Duncan, Miller, & Jiang, 2012, p. 3), is that synchronous and asynchronous activities can be used both within and outside of the World (Gregory & Masters, 2012, p. 421). Students can participate in synchronous activities such as listening to speeches, chatting in real-time with other users and interacting with avatars, or they can leave messages for offline users or send emails if it’s enabled (Gregory, Virtual Classrooms, 2014).
Virtual Worlds breaks down barriers, both physical and psychological. Educators can present their lectures in Second Life, for example, as if they were delivering them in real life – student avatars sit in an auditorium and the educator teaches from the front – without requiring students to be physically in the same room, the same city or even the same country (Gregory, 2014). The use of chat and Instant Messaging can remove the fear that students might have of talking in public, thereby allowing their confidence to grow and potentially enabling their level of knowledge and understanding to increase (Duncan, Miller, & Jiang, 2012).
The question of whether Virtual Worlds provides students with a range of pedagogies and higher order thinking skills is addressed by Duncan et al (2012) who discovered that, across the 90 examples, students were exposed to - among others - Problem Based Learning, Enquiry Based Learning, Role Playing, Collaborative Simulations, Collaborative Construction and experimental learning. As long as appropriate assessment and evaluation methods are used, they suggest that “Virtual Worlds are ideal for constructing authentic feature risk tasks which would be difficult to do in the real world due to resource constraints such as cost or access to location” (Duncan, Miller, & Jiang, 2012, p. 11).
The use of Virtual Worlds in Education is indeed a bold and innovative move, but one that could have profound effects on developing more interconnected and engaged students.
The excitement of Virtual Worlds such as Second Life, which is deemed by the Centre for Learning and Performance Technologies as the “top Virtual World for educational use” (Duncan, Miller, & Jiang, 2012, p. 3), is that synchronous and asynchronous activities can be used both within and outside of the World (Gregory & Masters, 2012, p. 421). Students can participate in synchronous activities such as listening to speeches, chatting in real-time with other users and interacting with avatars, or they can leave messages for offline users or send emails if it’s enabled (Gregory, Virtual Classrooms, 2014).
Virtual Worlds breaks down barriers, both physical and psychological. Educators can present their lectures in Second Life, for example, as if they were delivering them in real life – student avatars sit in an auditorium and the educator teaches from the front – without requiring students to be physically in the same room, the same city or even the same country (Gregory, 2014). The use of chat and Instant Messaging can remove the fear that students might have of talking in public, thereby allowing their confidence to grow and potentially enabling their level of knowledge and understanding to increase (Duncan, Miller, & Jiang, 2012).
The question of whether Virtual Worlds provides students with a range of pedagogies and higher order thinking skills is addressed by Duncan et al (2012) who discovered that, across the 90 examples, students were exposed to - among others - Problem Based Learning, Enquiry Based Learning, Role Playing, Collaborative Simulations, Collaborative Construction and experimental learning. As long as appropriate assessment and evaluation methods are used, they suggest that “Virtual Worlds are ideal for constructing authentic feature risk tasks which would be difficult to do in the real world due to resource constraints such as cost or access to location” (Duncan, Miller, & Jiang, 2012, p. 11).
The use of Virtual Worlds in Education is indeed a bold and innovative move, but one that could have profound effects on developing more interconnected and engaged students.
References
Dalgarno, B., Lee, M., Carlson, L., Gregory, S., & Tynan, B. (2011). An Australian and New Zealand scoping study on the use of 3D immersive virtual worlds in higher education. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 27(1), 1-15.
Duncan, I., Miller, A., & Jiang, S. (2012). A taxonomy of virtual worlds usage in education. British Journal of Educational Technology, 43(6), 949-964.
Gregory, S. (2014). Retrieved from Virtual Classrooms: http://www.virtualclassrooms.info/
Gregory, S., & Masters, Y. (2012). Real Thinking with virtual hats: A role-playing activity for pre-service teachers in Second Life. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 28(3), 420-440.
Duncan, I., Miller, A., & Jiang, S. (2012). A taxonomy of virtual worlds usage in education. British Journal of Educational Technology, 43(6), 949-964.
Gregory, S. (2014). Retrieved from Virtual Classrooms: http://www.virtualclassrooms.info/
Gregory, S., & Masters, Y. (2012). Real Thinking with virtual hats: A role-playing activity for pre-service teachers in Second Life. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 28(3), 420-440.