Abstract
While virtual worlds share common technologies and audiences with
games, they possess many unique characteristics. Particularly when
compared to massively multiplayer online role-playing games, virtual
worlds create very different learning and teaching opportunities
through markets, creation, and connections to the real world, and
lack of overt game goals. This chapter aims to expose a wide audience
to the breadth and depth of learning occurring within Second Life
(SL). From in-world classes in the scripting language to mixed-reality
conferences about the future of broadcasting, a tremendous variety
of both amateurs and experts are leveraging SL as a platform for
education. In one sense, this isn't new since every technology is
co-opted by communities for communication, but SL is different because
every aspect of it was designed to encourage this co-opting, this
remixing of the virtual and the real.
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