Multi-User Virtual Environments for Learning: Experience and Technology Design

Abstract

Multi-User Virtual Environments are often used to support learning in formal and informal educational contexts. A technology-based educational experience consists of several elements: content, syllabus, roles, sequence of activities,\ud assignments, assessment procedures, etc. that must be aligned with the affordances of the technologies to be used. The design\ud process, therefore, has to follow a dual track: the design of the educational experience as a whole and the design of the MUVE.\ud Each design process has some degree of independence, while, at the same time, the two design processes are also deeply\ud intertwined. The paper proposes a novel approach to design (both for the educational experience and the MUVE): a “biological\ud lifecycle” design, where evolution (for survival and fitness) is crucial, while anticipating all the requirements (creating an engineering blueprint) is very challenging. This paper is based upon a number of large-scale case studies, involving nearly 9,000 high-school students from 18 countries in Europe, Israel, and the USA. Substantial educational benefits were achieved by these learning experiences, at the center of which were MUVEs. It can’t be claimed that MUVEs were the only factors for generating these benefits, but for sure they were exceptionally important components

Exploitation of the Virtual Worlds in Tourism and Tourism Education

“…In spite of the virtual worlds being available for years, the need for additional research is evident. According to Blas, Bucciero, Mainetti, and Paolini (2012), the technologies have the potential to dramatically influence the process of education if exploited correctly and in the context of well thought conception. This shows how education which needs to integrate the experience-based learning is closely related to tourism as a way to gain such an experience.…”

“…(2009) perceives Second Life as the most mature community platform for the virtual worlds. One research study (Blas et al, 2012) which was held in 2010 evaluated Second Life as by far the most popular platform used by education institutions from New Media Consortium. And in 2014 Ambrose (2014) describes Second Life together with OpenSim as two most important virtual environments used in higher education.…”

The Effects of 3D Multi-User Virtual Environments on Collaborative Learning and Social Presence

“…Rapid advances in information and communication technologies have led to an increase in the use of three-dimensional Multi-User Virtual Environments (MUVEs) in many areas (Blas, Bucciero, Mainetti, & Paolini, 2012) especially in the video game industry. In the meantime, changing students' needs and increasing use of technology in education lead educators to move on different technologies in educational area.…”

“…During these developments, MUVEs are becoming more and more common in education as a new technology most specifically to create authentic learning environments (Doğan, Çınar, & Tüzün, 2018). MUVEs are seen as an important technology to facilitate learning process if it is integrated into education within a well-designed educational context (Blas et al, 2012). Especially, the academic world and educators has been quite interested in the use of MUVEs (Dickey, 2000;Doğan, Çınar, & Tüzün, 2018;Messinger et al, 2009;Poppe, Brown, Recker, Johnson, & Vanderfeesten, 2017) since their future of being effective in remote collaborative learning environments due to their immersion, interaction and communication capabilities (Ibanez, Rueda, Maroto, & Kloos, 2013).…”

Usability Evaluation of a Virtual Educational Laboratory Platform

“…Virtual reality technology can provide its users with a feeling of immersion and support team collaboration [16] [17]. Furthermore, state-of-the-art videogames engines can serve as an inexpensive workbench for authoring desktop virtual reality systems.…”