From “How Can Massive Multi-user Virtual Environments and Virtual Role Play Enhance Traditional Teaching Practice?” by Angela Addison and Dr Liam O’Hare
However, just as the use of VLEs has sometimes been disappointingly transmissive due to theway academics have used them to mimic what they have always done in lectures, so it seemsthat some of the early uses of SL mimic what has already been done in VLEs. Time spentin SL has suggested a simple classification of the early educational spaces. Although fourcategories are proposed below, it is acknowledged that most educational spaces in SL fit intomore than one category at the same time.
The Replica Campus
Replica campus spaces are those spaces that are intended to be faithful replicas of existingeducational buildings, or whole campuses. Many students will attend university campusesaway from their hometown, taking them out of their familiar surroundings. It is acknowledgedthat this causes difficulties and that individuals will take varying periods to adjust, “Oneof the most stressful parts of moving to a new place is trying to become orientated with yournew surroundings. This can take time and be intimidating, but until you get a feel for the localgeography you can never truly feel settled” ( accessed 8/9/08). Thesereplica spaces may be of use in helping the students to acclimatise to the real building orcampus, and so may help in social integration, and this possibly promotes better on-campuslearning by reducing one of the barriers to learning faced by new students. It is not clear if theyhave any other significant role, apart from as serving to make a clear institutional statement ofa presence in SL.
The Virtual Workplace
Many spaces contain representations of work-places or of some other environment ofsignificance in vocational education. The most common spaces in this group feature hospitalsor health care establishments. Some include objects which include scripting to allow simpleinteraction (for example a coffee dispenser which provides the avatar with a cup of coffee, areceptionist who welcomes the avatar to the building, or a teleport point that allows the avatarsto teleport elsewhere). They sometimes include notecard givers, or other scripted objects,
which outline activities, but too often these activities are to be undertaken by avatars asindividuals. Few of these spaces seem to be designed to promote interaction between avatarswithin the activity.
The Poster Display
Some spaces are set up to organise content by providing a building or campus metaphor. Themost common style in this group is the poster display, but there are also notecard givers andHTML displays. In many cases, the content is not in any way interactive, and would have beendelivered just as well, if not better, by traditional website or VLE. Some sites also offer virtuallectures, but, as Hobbs et al. (2006) suggest, “While these activities provide advantages fordistance learning this does not fully exploit the intrinsic properties of the virtual world.”
Simulations
A number of spaces present avatars with physical simulations, often of molecular or biologicalstructures. Objects in SL are made from primitives (prims) and the number of prims is limited,preventing the representation of complex structures. This is not true in other graphicalenvironments, such as JMOL, where a much more detailed, responsive and versatileexploration of molecules such as DNA can be undertaken (see, for example,
Figure 1 Double Helix demonstration at Genome Island.
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The most significant feature of most of these educational spaces, and the noticeable distinctionbetween them and the social spaces, is that the educational spaces are often found to beuninhabited. Perhaps this is because, unlike the educational spaces, the social spaces makeuse of the unique benefit offered by MMUVEs; the wealth of social interaction that is vital toencourage a fully immersive experience. It has often been suggested that the real advantageoffered by SL is the scope it offers for social interaction. Oshi (2007) suggests that SL “adds a
rich visual aspect to Internet activities such as socializing, fact finding, and doing business” whileChildress (2006) suggests that “The highly social attributes of [Massively Multiuser On-line RolePlaying Games] make them rich environments for cooperative learning-based activities.” Surely itis these rich social activities that make SL so popular. If a space does not offer social interaction,then the interest in wandering around a deserted campus, even when there are butterflies orjumping fish, soon wains. Indeed, for students involved in distance learning, possibly alreadyfeeling a sense of isolation due to their mode of study, the experience might be quite negative. Ifvirtual worlds are to help distance learners, they must promote social interactions.
Davis and Lucking (2006) have reiterated the importance of student-to-student interaction in thelearning environment. They consider that “generating interaction in the virtual classroom is criticalto success”. In their study of group work in a virtual world environment, Hobbs et al. concludedthat “research and preliminary findings all point to the need to devise carefully planned learningactivities to produce the desired learning outcomes. The sophistication of the environmentmakes this a more, rather than less, challenging task”. This follows previous experience ine-learning, specifically with asynchronous discussion boards, which has suggested that studentslearn effectively, and become autonomous learners in online environments, when they areguided through a logical progression (online socialisation, exchanging information, conferencingto construct knowledge and finally critical thinking) by means of what Salmon (2000) hasdescribed as “e-tivities”. It is likely that the same progression, and the same requirement forstructured e-tivities, may also apply to effective learning in SL.