Abstract
Since the appearing of multi-user virtual environments, there were many attempts to use those in education. In the modern, 3D, multi-user environments, like the Second Life virtual world, users can move, communicate, create, and modify 3D objects using their avatars. Organizing online conferences and lectures is probably the most common usage of virtual worlds for educational purposes. However, except for this type of passive learning, the Second Life virtual world offers possibilities also for student-centered, active, creative, constructive, and collaborative learning. In this contribution, we introduce a virtual school that we developed in Second Life. While we created different areas of this school, we were focusing mainly on the possibilities of teaching the basics of 3D modeling and programming in Linden Scripting Language (LSL) - which are the two essential skills needed for developing user-created contents in this environment. Besides the educational tools for teaching and learning these subjects, we also created some interactive didactic games for practicing English as a second language (ESL). In this paper, we describe our observations, summarize the possibilities of using virtual worlds in computer science education, and we mention some of the pros and cons of using Second Life as an educational platform for teaching and learning 3D modeling and programming. Because the virtual area of the school is publicly available for every user of Second Life, we also wanted to know who visits our educational space. For this reason, we created a questionnaire, which is available 24/7 in the entrance hall of the school. The questionnaire asks for some demographic data, user’s activities in Second Life, experiences related to 3D modeling and programming, and future interests in online courses in this environment. The results showed that users have a positive attitude to learning in Second Life, many of the respondents are interested in 3D modeling and LSL scripting courses. The detailed results of the questionnaire are presented in the last part of the paper. |
Keywords
virtual worlds, virtual school, online learning, 3D modeling, programming |