Maintaining Context in a Changing (Virtual) World

by Athanasios Christopoulos and Marc Conrad: the paper (pdf), slides as .ppt, slides as .pdf.

Abstract

Educational activities previously performed in Second Life are now more and more move moving to other alternatives. This study concentrates on the features of Second Life and its open-source alternative, OpenSim that affect the results of the in-world educational activities. The need for educators to take these features into account is another focus of this study which also aims to highlight the similarities and differences between the contexts of Second Life and OpenSim worlds, whether internally or externally hosted, as well as their potentials and weaknesses. The findings suggest that each one of these alternatives gathers different positive and negative features and their suitability greatly depends on the academics’ educational needs.

Reference as: Christopoulos, A., & Conrad, M., Maintaining context in a Changing (Virtual) World: Educators' Perspectives for OpenSim and Second Life. In 5th International Conference on Computer Supported Education (CSEDU) 2013. Aachen, Germany.

Teaching Risk with Virtual Worlds

by Marc Conrad: the paper (pdf), slides as .ppt, slides as .pdf.

Abstract

We discuss and demonstrate how Virtual Worlds available at the University of Bedfordshire have been used to teach Project Management using a ‘situated learning’ approach. In particular we have a closer look on the aspect of teaching risk management and identify how different aspects of risk are addressed in a variety of implementations of Virtual Worlds, namely Second Life, a Virtual World provided by an external provider, not Linden Lab, a Virtual World that is maintained ‘in-house’ and a Virtual World hosted by the students themselves. We note that the student experience of risk is different in each of these incarnations of a Virtual World which impacts their perception of risk and hence the effects this has concerning the teaching goals.

Reference as: Conrad, M., 2013. Teaching Risk with Virtual Worlds. In 5th International Conference on Computer Supported Education (CSEDU 2013). Aachen, Germany. Share
© by Marc Conrad, 2013. The material on this page is presented "as is". There is no warranty implied by presenting this stuff.
This web page should be referenced as: "Conrad, Marc (2013); Two Virtual World Related Presentations at CSEDU 2013; available at: http://perisic.com/csedu13".
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