A compressed, or zipped, architectural environment (which may or may not include the subject information for a course, as it may just be a shell environment) that can be set up anywhere within a virtual world.
Published in Chapter:
Classroom-in-a-Box: Rethinking Learning Community Classroom Environment Needs within Three-Dimensional Virtual Learning Environments
Caroline M. Crawford (University of Houston-Clear Lake, Houston, USA), Virginia Dickenson (eLumenata, USA), and Marion S. Smith (Texas Southern University, USA)
Copyright: © 2010
|Pages: 20
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-782-9.ch003
Abstract
This discussion focuses upon a theoretical understanding of the instructional architecture that supports learning communities within three-dimensional virtual world environments; specifically, within the Second Life world environment. This theoretical understanding provides the essential link between instructional imperatives, performance improvement and a community of learning within an instructional technology framework. Motivated by the shift from the Information Age known for the availability of information towards the Cognitive Age which emphasizes the ability to access, evaluate, organize, comprehend, apply, analyze, synthesize and innovatively represent information into an enhanced understanding and novel use, this discussion offers the opportunity to directly address the learner’s needs within the threedimensional virtual learning environment, such as Second Life, through the design of a virtual learning environment classroom-in-a-box.