Amanda Week1- Article review

Amanda Week1- Article review

Source: Croatian Journal of Education Vol.17; No.4/2015, pages: 1037-1069

The Development of a Criteria List for the Selection of 3D Virtual Worlds to Design an Educational Environment 

Nowadays, many researchers are seeking a new virtual world platform since Second Life removed its educational discount. Various virtual world platforms which help users to create 3D environments have constantly been developed and marketed. 3D virtual worlds stand out as a type of technology that allows students to build and share their own knowledge and sometimes to learn by creating their own virtual environments.

Due to the educational potentials, some researchers regard 3D virtual worlds as the learning environments of the future. This has generated academic discussion about the potential of virtual worlds as an educational medium.

Aim of study:

Considering the recent interest in the use of virtual worlds for educational purposes and the lack of appropriate academic assessment studies, it would be useful to develop a criteria list that will help teachers to select a virtual world platform that can meet educational needs and which can help them to identify deficiencies in the existing platforms.

The goal was to develop a criteria list that may help instructional designers, developers, and educators to evaluate all virtual world platforms for educational purposes.

Methods:

Generally, studies that compare two popular virtual world platforms, or compare virtual world platforms to real-world applications, are more prominent.

Criteria lists are defined as item lists which are structured intuitively according to certain categories. In this study, a criteria list was used to reveal the strengths and weaknesses of virtual world platforms and to investigate their potential for practical applications. In the development process of this list, the phases of literature review, heuristic investigation and eliciting expert opinions followed by revisions, and conducting a questionnaire were implemented.

Main findings:

Communication among users is important since they work together and exchange ideas with each other in educational activities. It is the reason behind the inclusion of the communication tools category in the criteria list. In this category, the items are written in line with these features: written communication, voice communication, synchronous interaction, asynchronous interaction, communication with other platforms, signboard-like message objects, and features of muting and blocking unwanted users.

Another main group in the criteria list is educational specifications, which contains a great diversity of educational methods and tools. Although educational activities depend on the requirement of the project, the selected platform should be flexible enough to provide required activities and more.