CSCL Techniques in Collaborative Virtual Environments: The Case of Second Life - Teaching through Multi-User Virtual Environments - page 144

Table 3. Sharing and manipulating resources

Manipulation of
space and objects

Concurrent objects
manipulation

Instructional tools
availability

Results exporting

Croquet yes yes yes moderate

Wonderland no no no slight

Worlds yes N/A N/A no

Tixeo yes yes yes yes

I-maginer yes yes N/A yes

Active Worlds yes no N/A very good (AWEDU)

There yes N/A N/A N/A

Dive N/A N/A N/A N/A

Moove yes N/A yes N/A

Second Life yes yes yes very good

Table 4. Communication

Audio -
Conference

Video -
Conference

Streaming
Audio

Streaming
Video

Chat Gestures

Croquet yes yes no no no yes

Wonderland yes yes no yes no yes

Worlds yes yes no yes yes yes

Tixeo yes yes yes N/A N/A yes

I-maginer public, private yes yes yes yes yes

Active Worlds yes no no yes no yes

public,
private

There yes no yes no yes

Dive public yes no N/A no yes

public,
private

Moove yes yes yes yes yes

public, private,
conference

public, private,
conference

yes, fully custom-
izable

Second Life no yes yes

THeOReTICAL VALIDATION OF
SeCOND LIFe POTeNTIAL TO
SUPPORT COLLABORATIVe
e-LeARNINg SCeNARIOS

the designers' decisions can have a significant
effect on the appropriateness of the platform for
education. Regarding the design adequacy of
SL for online learning purposes, we validated
the platform's features, philosophy and policies
against the design principles presented by Bouras
et al. (2008). The principles are the following:

Since the early uses of virtual environments in
learning, researchers have tried to establish a
schema that incorporates some well known as-
pects, issues, elements and principles which should
be taken into account during the design process of
educational virtual worlds. The rationale behind

• Principle 1: Design to support multiple

collaborative learning scenarios: a use-
ful tool for collaboration would support