CSCL Techniques in Collaborative Virtual Environments: The Case of Second Life - Teaching through Multi-User Virtual Environments - page 139

Chapter 9
CSCL Techniques in
Collaborative Virtual
Environments:
The Case of Second Life
Thrasyvoulos Tsiatsos
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece
Andreas Konstantinidis
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece
Theodouli Terzidou
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece
Lazaros Ioannidis
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece
Chrysanthi Tseloudi
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece
ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews and compares the most promising collaborative virtual environment platforms,
which have been used or proposed for supporting educational activities in terms of their potential to
support collaborative e-learning. The most promising environment according to the results of this review
is Second Life. Second Life is further examined by validating the platform's features, philosophy and
policies against some basic design principles for collaborative virtual learning environments in order
to better assess its design adequacy for online learning. Furthermore, the chapter will present the fea-
tures that the authors have implemented within the Second Life platform, in order to facilitate both the
jigsaw and fishbowl collaborative e-learning techniques. Finally, the authors will present a case study
concerning the evaluation of Second Life by undergraduate students in order to assess its potential to
support these collaborative e-learning techniques.
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-61692-822-3.ch009