School of Education

What are educators‟ motivations for using virtual worlds with their students? Are they using them to support the teaching of professions and if this is the case, do they introduce virtual worlds into the curriculum to develop and/or expand students' professional learning networks? Are they using virtual worlds to transform their teaching and learning? In recognition of the exciting opportunities that virtual worlds present for higher education, the DEHub Virtual Worlds Working Group was formed. It is made up of Australian university academics who are investigating the role that virtual worlds will play in the future of education and actively implementing the technology within their own teaching practice and curricula. This paper presents a typology for teaching and learning in 3D virtual worlds and applies the typology to a series of case studies based on the ways in which academics and their institutions are exploiting the power of virtual worlds for diverse purposes ranging from business scenarios and virtual excursions to role-play, experimentation and language development. The case studies offer insight into the ways in which institutions are transforming their teaching for an unknown future through innovative teaching and learning in virtual worlds. The paper demonstrates how virtual worlds enable low cost alternatives to existing pedagogies as well as creating opportunities for rich, immersive and authentic activities that would otherwise not be feasible or maybe not even be possible. Through the use of virtual worlds, teaching and learning can be transformed to cater for an unknown future.

This article describes the research design of, and reports selected findings from, a
scoping study aimed at examining current and planned applications of 3D immersive
virtual worlds at higher education institutions across Australia and New Zealand. The
scoping study is the first of its kind in the region, intended to parallel and complement
a number of studies conducted in other parts of the world. Results from a sector-wide
questionnaire administered as part of the scoping study, portions of which are
presented in this article, appear consistent with international trends, especially in
terms of the platforms chosen and the dramatic increase in usage seen in recent years.
Higher education teaching staff in Australia and New Zealand are using 3D
immersive virtual worlds with their students in a variety of ways, for both assessable
and non-assessable tasks and in face to face, fully online/distance as well as blendedmode
subjects, although use in face to face and blended contexts appears to be most
common. The results also provide some insight into the demographics (e.g. age) of
staff who have adopted 3D immersive virtual worlds in their teaching, as well as into
the academic disciplines in which the technology is being employed.

Während Web 2.0 sich hoher Aufmerksamkeit als Werkzeug, das Lernen zu unterstützen erfreut, bleibt Really Simple Syndication der "arme Vetter" dieser Techniken. Der "Angebotscharakter" von RSS und Inhaltssyndication kann verwendet werden, um inhaltsreiche, aktive, soziale Lernerfahrungen zu liefern, die einen hohen Grad von Anfängerpersonalisierung hervorbringen, Wahlmöglichkeit und Autonomie fördern. Sie beschreiben eine Anzahl von Wegen, in denen das Potential von RSS benutzt werden kann, um Pädagogik so zu transformieren, dass sie mit neuen Theorien und Lernmodellen kongruent sind, Theorien und Modelle zu lernen, die mit der Philosophie und dem Ethos der allgemein vernetzten Gesellschaft übereinstimmen.

Modern information technology and computer science curricula employ a variety of graphical tools and development environments to facilitate student learning of introductory programming concepts and techniques. While the provision of interactive features and the use of visualization can enhance students' understanding and assist them in grasping fundamental ideas, the real difficulty for many students lies in making the transition from relying on the graphical features of these tools, to actually writing programming code statements in accordance with a set of plain English instructions. some, or perhaps many, participants who had access to BlueJ during the testing phase did not actually use it to assist them in answering the test questions. Secondly, since the screencasts and BlueJ were intended to ease students' transition to code, the data collection was conducted immediately following the participants' initial exposure to code statements. This gave rise to the possibility that they may not have been ready to attempt the questions framed at a high level of abstraction, which accounted for a majority of the test marks. The authors had hypothesized that the most benefit in providing the screencast-based scaffolding and the use of BlueJ as a cognitive tool was likely to be gained in assisting students with writing code for English instructions at this high level of abstraction; however, at this point in the semester they may not have been adequately prepared to undertake these types of questions, which required them to interpret the high-level task requirements and decompose them into individual object and class operations that would achieve the desired outcome (object state).

This paper reports initial findings of a major scoping study that is being undertaken to examine current and planned applications of 3D immersive virtual worlds at higher education institutions across Australia and New Zealand. This scoping study is the first of its kind in the region. It is parallel and complementary to several studies conducted in other countries, and results obtained thus far appear consistent with international trends. The overall research design of the scoping study is discussed, along with preliminary results from the Australian/New Zealand sector-wide questionnaire. There seem to be preferred platforms being used in the Australian and New Zealand context, and usage has increased dramatically in recent years. Academics are using 3D immersive virtual worlds with their students in a variety of ways, for both assessable and non-assessable tasks. The project is supported by the Distance Education Hub research consortium, with team members from Charles Sturt University and the University of New England.