Learning in Virtual Worlds: A Situated Perspective - Teaching through Multi-User Virtual Environments - page 120

Chapter 8
Learning in Virtual Worlds:
A Situated Perspective

Antonio Santos
Universidad de las Américas Puebla, México

ABSTRACT

Due to the availability of platforms like Second Life, the use of Multi-User Virtual Environments (MUVEs)
for learning purposes is gaining in its adeptness around the educational realm. However, although it is a
powerful technology with great possibilities for instructional purposes, we are still at the early phase of
adoption and in need of a clearer understanding of how we learn within a virtual world. Particularly, we
need to explore new and different ways of employing this technology to take advantage of its educational
potential. Along these lines, this chapter's main objective is to outline a set of instructional strategies
framed within the situated learning paradigm to increase the quality of learning in a MUVE; and to
recommend some research questions that could be used to validate the proposed instructional strategies.
To accomplish this objective, first the situated learning paradigm and some of its more relevant influ-
ences will be reviewed; i.e. constructivism, Vygotsky's theory, communities of practice, practice fields,
learning communities and cognitive apprenticeship. Secondly, based on all these ideas, the instructional
strategies and the recommended research questions will be presented; and finally, a conclusion and
some future trends will be discussed.

INTRODUCTION

realm. However, Romiszowski (2008) warns us
about forgetting the already learned lessons when
designing learning experiences with these newly
emerging technologies. He is referring to previ-
ous experiences with instructional software and
multimedia, where expensive technologies were
developed for learning low-level educational
objectives like rote-memory or drill and practice;

At present, due to the availability of platforms
like Second Life, the use of Multi-User Virtual
Environments (MUVEs) for learning purposes is
gaining in its adeptness around the educational

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-61692-822-3.ch008