Virtual environments and their uses in education
The last survey carried out by (Association of Virtual Worlds) and its website is www.associationofvirtualworlds.com in May 2008 resulted on e more there are more than 115 virtual worlds for adults, teenagers and children.
Virtual worlds could be divided into three types:
1- MMORPG: Massively multiplayer online role play games.
2- Metaverses
3- MMOLE: Massively multilearner online learning environments or Massively Multiple On Line Education.
MMORPG is a genre of computer role-playing games in which a large number of players interact with one another within a virtual game world. As in all RPGs, players assume the role of a fictional character (often in a fantasy world), and take control over many of that character's actions. Players do some adventures to arrive to the goal and during their adventure they must win against their enemies. They also collect points when they arrive to the goals so they can go to the next level. MMORPGs are distinguished from single-player or small multi-player CRPGs by the number of players, and by the game's persistent world, usually hosted by the game's publisher, which continues to exist and evolve while the player is away from the game.
One of the most famous environment of this type is World of Warcraft www.worldofwarcraft.com/bc-splash.htm. This have been used by some university business and economics departments to teach their students economical theories such as trading, exchanging and commodities. (however the article did not say which university and how they used it exactly?
Metavers are virtual worlds, where humans, as avatars, interact with each other and software agents, in a three-dimensional space that uses the metaphor of the real world using the keyboard and the mouse. The word metaverse is a portmanteau of the words "meta" and "universe". There are no roles control the avatar appearance so the player can change its appearance and character. Metavers environment differ from the other virtual environment in there is no goals, levels or wars the player needs to finish or pass, in short, there is no competitions between players. It is also allow players to create different avatars, program them then sell them to other players. One of the most famous virtual environment of this type is (Second Life).
MMOLE Virtual Worlds focused on learning and training environments are using 3D video game technology for education. It is counted as a complement to Learning Management Systems. Its only aim is the education. This environments sometimes designed as class room environments which the teacher can create the content and the learners can interact with the environment and their peers. ProtoSphere www.protonmedia.com is one example of this type and it could be specialized to work along with Learning Management Systems or a joint resource to the electronic content.
Arabic and Universal experiments of using virtual worlds on training and teaching
In the Arabic countries, It is noticed that most experiments is using virtual worlds only to represent an academic institution in the world. For instant, Dubai University for females opened a university in the virtual world, aims to give opportunities for the students to discover the virtual learning opportunities for the university in the real life. Dubai university Iceland for girls contain some main features such as a duplicate to the university building for girls with a link to the electronic website to the university, mosque and the Emirates flag. It also contain some features special exclusive for the university staff and students including a library and 5 class rooms and a museum which still under construction (From the Gulf Newspaper).
Universally, the use of virtual worlds in education is vary between representing universities from different countries on the world such as Harford and Stanford Universities from the US and Hull University from the UK and other universities from France, Italy, Canada…ect or provide academic services for the students and visitors to those universities in the virtual worlds and this what the college of higher education did (U 21 Global).
The college opened a virtual iceland called (U21Global Island) offer a high education for over 9 million residents. One of the most important landmarks there is (the Knowledge River) where the visitors can search for all papers and researches that had written by U 21 Global University teachers. There is another feature there, it is the (Sandbox) for those who wish to present and share their creativity and works. The aim of designing all those features is to spread the sole of creativity on the educational process. (from the Arabic Gate website).
Virtual worlds also use for distance learning, Ritzema and Harris, 2008 has designed a laboratory for design the circles with making them such as (adder) and (Mealy Machine) and ask students to do their work in the lab. At the end of the semester, the researchers carried a survey to investigate the students outcome from the virtual lab in this field. The results were positive and encouraging as this lab helped the students to understand how to make circles and what to do with them.
In a similar study by Seng and Edirisinghe 2007 from Temasek Polytechnic University , Singapore, the duplicate the mathematics and engineering complicated theories. There was one our specified to enter the virtual world to practice what they have been taught. The interviews shows the students satisfaction with the technology to help the understand the subjects.
Virtual worlds can be used in training and skills development as (Thomson Netg) did. They build labs for training for Microsoft and Cisco nets and other labs for skills courses such as selling and communication with customers skills. Virtual worlds also used for language teaching Avatar Languages school used a system to teach language which connect between learning in the virtual world and the learning in the real world. It also provided the school with hearable and seeable recourses which is very close to this website www.languagelab.com/en.
Virtual worlds has a very voluble feature. It is the written and hearable chat so the users can talk with each other and their teacher which allows teachers to build high efficiency interactive classes.
Virtual worlds could be used to give lecturers, seminars, meetings and conferences. It can also used for cultural displays and exhibitions and virtual museums which can be for art, medicine, science or fantasy. For example, The International Spaceflight Museum. It also use for the historical places presenting such as the temple of Isis and Rome.
It also used for the interior design and constructions. The students of GippsTAFE Victoria college in Australia www.gippstafe.vic.edu.au/news/2006/december/virtualworlds.html have designed houses for the virtual worlds people so every student had to re-design a house for a virtual owner. Similarly Montana State University used virtual world for architectural design.
Finally, virtual worlds used to mimic something. A teacher designed a mimic of the Ants' Kingdome as it is in the real life while searching for food. Every virtual ant provided with artificial inelegance system to help her find the food and take it to the nest.
Virtual worlds could be divided into three types:
1- MMORPG: Massively multiplayer online role play games.
2- Metaverses
3- MMOLE: Massively multilearner online learning environments or Massively Multiple On Line Education.
MMORPG is a genre of computer role-playing games in which a large number of players interact with one another within a virtual game world. As in all RPGs, players assume the role of a fictional character (often in a fantasy world), and take control over many of that character's actions. Players do some adventures to arrive to the goal and during their adventure they must win against their enemies. They also collect points when they arrive to the goals so they can go to the next level. MMORPGs are distinguished from single-player or small multi-player CRPGs by the number of players, and by the game's persistent world, usually hosted by the game's publisher, which continues to exist and evolve while the player is away from the game.
One of the most famous environment of this type is World of Warcraft www.worldofwarcraft.com/bc-splash.htm. This have been used by some university business and economics departments to teach their students economical theories such as trading, exchanging and commodities. (however the article did not say which university and how they used it exactly?
Metavers are virtual worlds, where humans, as avatars, interact with each other and software agents, in a three-dimensional space that uses the metaphor of the real world using the keyboard and the mouse. The word metaverse is a portmanteau of the words "meta" and "universe". There are no roles control the avatar appearance so the player can change its appearance and character. Metavers environment differ from the other virtual environment in there is no goals, levels or wars the player needs to finish or pass, in short, there is no competitions between players. It is also allow players to create different avatars, program them then sell them to other players. One of the most famous virtual environment of this type is (Second Life).
MMOLE Virtual Worlds focused on learning and training environments are using 3D video game technology for education. It is counted as a complement to Learning Management Systems. Its only aim is the education. This environments sometimes designed as class room environments which the teacher can create the content and the learners can interact with the environment and their peers. ProtoSphere www.protonmedia.com is one example of this type and it could be specialized to work along with Learning Management Systems or a joint resource to the electronic content.
Arabic and Universal experiments of using virtual worlds on training and teaching
In the Arabic countries, It is noticed that most experiments is using virtual worlds only to represent an academic institution in the world. For instant, Dubai University for females opened a university in the virtual world, aims to give opportunities for the students to discover the virtual learning opportunities for the university in the real life. Dubai university Iceland for girls contain some main features such as a duplicate to the university building for girls with a link to the electronic website to the university, mosque and the Emirates flag. It also contain some features special exclusive for the university staff and students including a library and 5 class rooms and a museum which still under construction (From the Gulf Newspaper).
Universally, the use of virtual worlds in education is vary between representing universities from different countries on the world such as Harford and Stanford Universities from the US and Hull University from the UK and other universities from France, Italy, Canada…ect or provide academic services for the students and visitors to those universities in the virtual worlds and this what the college of higher education did (U 21 Global).
The college opened a virtual iceland called (U21Global Island) offer a high education for over 9 million residents. One of the most important landmarks there is (the Knowledge River) where the visitors can search for all papers and researches that had written by U 21 Global University teachers. There is another feature there, it is the (Sandbox) for those who wish to present and share their creativity and works. The aim of designing all those features is to spread the sole of creativity on the educational process. (from the Arabic Gate website).
Virtual worlds also use for distance learning, Ritzema and Harris, 2008 has designed a laboratory for design the circles with making them such as (adder) and (Mealy Machine) and ask students to do their work in the lab. At the end of the semester, the researchers carried a survey to investigate the students outcome from the virtual lab in this field. The results were positive and encouraging as this lab helped the students to understand how to make circles and what to do with them.
In a similar study by Seng and Edirisinghe 2007 from Temasek Polytechnic University , Singapore, the duplicate the mathematics and engineering complicated theories. There was one our specified to enter the virtual world to practice what they have been taught. The interviews shows the students satisfaction with the technology to help the understand the subjects.
Virtual worlds can be used in training and skills development as (Thomson Netg) did. They build labs for training for Microsoft and Cisco nets and other labs for skills courses such as selling and communication with customers skills. Virtual worlds also used for language teaching Avatar Languages school used a system to teach language which connect between learning in the virtual world and the learning in the real world. It also provided the school with hearable and seeable recourses which is very close to this website www.languagelab.com/en.
Virtual worlds has a very voluble feature. It is the written and hearable chat so the users can talk with each other and their teacher which allows teachers to build high efficiency interactive classes.
Virtual worlds could be used to give lecturers, seminars, meetings and conferences. It can also used for cultural displays and exhibitions and virtual museums which can be for art, medicine, science or fantasy. For example, The International Spaceflight Museum. It also use for the historical places presenting such as the temple of Isis and Rome.
It also used for the interior design and constructions. The students of GippsTAFE Victoria college in Australia www.gippstafe.vic.edu.au/news/2006/december/virtualworlds.html have designed houses for the virtual worlds people so every student had to re-design a house for a virtual owner. Similarly Montana State University used virtual world for architectural design.
Finally, virtual worlds used to mimic something. A teacher designed a mimic of the Ants' Kingdome as it is in the real life while searching for food. Every virtual ant provided with artificial inelegance system to help her find the food and take it to the nest.
These are just examples of some uses in the different fields.
