Virtual Worlds – Overview

References provided in Literature Section

Virtual worlds provide a place to socialize, collaborate, create, and communicate across geographic boundaries and with a sense of presence and awareness of one’s surroundings. Businesses, schools, and government use it for a variety of reasons. As a learning environment, it allows manipulation of both time and space: slowing or speeding time such as in simulations; viewing microscopic as macroscopic and vice versa. Mistakes can be made without real world penalty or consequence. Taking advantage of the immersive environment supports a variety of pedagogical models such as problem-based learning, action learning, and experiential learning. Implementation can support asynchronous and synchronous distance learning; exploratory, discovery, or collaborative learning; and provide social learning places and an immersive learning space.Many virtual worlds exist that you can visit for free, the most well-known being Second Life. Many options exist to create your own space in a virtual world for a fee. Proprietary commercial virtual worlds may be more expensive than those based on open source software. If you have programmers available, you can download and create your own virtual world using open source software, for example, OpenSimulator.