Teaching through Multi-User Virtual Environments: Applying Dynamic Elements to the Modern Classroom highlights the work of educators daring enough to teach in these new frontiers of education. This timely publication is a must-read for all educators and practitioners, of any subject and at any level, who wish to incorporate a dynamic online element to their classroom. It is also meant for researchers of education, computer science, and instructional technologies. Teaching through Multi-User Virtual Environments: Applying Dynamic Elements to the Modern Classroom is a one-stop resource for practices, as well as research activities, within the domain on Multi-User Virtual Environments.

As innovation advances and grows, classrooms are able utilize more advanced technology to educate students. Through virtual learning environments, students can experience real-life tasks and situations more directly, promoting active engagement in education. Integrating Multi-User Virtual Environments in Modern Classrooms provides emerging research on the development of multi-user virtual learning environments and their potential role in education. Highlighting a range of pertinent topics, such as project-based learning, social learning theory, and interactive media, this book is a vital resource for educational researchers, school teachers, college professors, and instructional designers seeking current research on the benefits and integration of multi-user virtual environments in modern education.

"This book highlights cutting-edge teaching ideas using theoretical discussions, case studies, and experiments pertaining to virtual environments, including learning foreign languages in virtual environments and examples that encourage educators to design and develop new worlds of learning inside and outside the university"--Provided by publisher.

New emergent forms of online communication started to change teaching and learning processes. It brought about online learning that has gained more and more attention from educator, learners and researchers. However, although communication is considered an essential element of the learning process, little is known about how online learning environments shape students’ interactions. The current paper sheds light on the structure and properties of social networks formed in an online learning environment. Two instructional approaches were compared – one incorporating traditional lecturing and blogging, and the other including traditional lecturing, blogging, and a Multi-User Virtual Environment (MUVE) platform called Second Life (SL). 56 students in a large Mid-Wester university enrolled in an undergraduate-level psychology course participated in the study. In the control condition, the students received a lecture and were required to write a blog post every week. In the experimental condition, the students received a lecture, wrote a blog post each week and also participated in SL activities during class time. Students’ interactions on the blog in both conditions were coded and analyzed at two time points: at Post 1 and Post 12. Social network analysis was used to analyze the network density, centralization and to calculate individual node centrality indices. ANCOVA and Quade’s test (non-parametric ANCOVA alternative) were used to analyze network connectedness. The results revealed the following: (1) Students in the experimental condition made more connections with each other than in the control condition, potentially due to the more egalitarian nature of communication channels in SL and more opportunities for synchronous communication; (2) The network in the experimental condition was more distributed and less centralized. Peer network analysis showed that students in the experimental condition took more control over the information flow and dispersion. The instructor played a less significant role in experimental condition network. Second Life allowed for creating an autonomous, distributed learning environment that could form a more distributed interaction network; (3) The instructor’s influence in both class networks decreased over time; however, he remained a facilitator of the information flow in both conditions, although to a much lesser extent in the experimental condition as compared to the control condition. The implications of these findings, possible limitations and future research directions are also discussed.

As the world rapidly moves online, sectors from management, industry, government, and education have broadly begun to virtualize the way people interact and learn. Virtual Learning Environments: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools and Applications is a three-volume compendium of the latest research, case studies, theories, and methodologies within the field of virtual learning environments. As networks get faster, cheaper, safer, and more reliable, their applications grow at a rate that makes it difficult for the typical practitioner to keep abreast. With a wide range of subjects, spanning from authors across the globe and with applications at different levels of education and higher learning, this reference guide serves academics and practitioners alike, indexed and categorized easily for study and application.

This book describes the current state of the art of various types of immersive learning: in research, in practice, and in the marketplace. It discusses advanced approaches in the design and development for various forms of immersive learning environments, and also the emerging innovations in assessment and research in the field. In addition, it demonstrates the opportunities and challenges in implementing advances in VR and immersion at scale in formal and informal learning. We are living in a time of rapid advances in terms of both the capabilities and the cost of virtual reality, multi-user virtual environments, and various forms of mixed reality. These new media potentially offer extraordinary opportunities for enhancing both motivation and learning across a range of subject areas, student developmental levels, and educational settings. With the development of practical and affordable virtual reality and mixed reality, people now have the chance to experience immersive learning both in classrooms and informally in homes, libraries, and community centers. The book appeals to a broad readership including teachers, administrators, scholars, policy makers, instructional designers, evaluators and industry leaders.