CSCL Techniques in Collaborative Virtual Environments: The Case of Second Life - Teaching through Multi-User Virtual Environments - page 151

Figure 4. The “Query” Visualization Tool

placed in the group's virtual collaborative
working space (Jigsaw Rooms). The boxes
contained: a) Jigsaw shirts, b) Additional
clothes for students, and c) Note cards
with instructions on “How do we dress our
avatar?”
B. Gestures and Animations Stand: The
stand was placed in the exterior space of
the plot, in a point that would be obvious
upon a student's entry in the basic education
building. The stand contained: a) gestures,
b) animations, c) poses, and d) note cards
with instructions.
C. Bulletin Help Boards: Two Bulletin boards
were placed at two different points in the
first floor of the main building. These boards
contained note cards with instructions for
basic SL operations.

CASe STUDY: ImPLemeNTINg
jIgSAW / FISHBOWL
COLLABORATIVe e-LeARNINg
TeCHNIQUeS IN SeCOND LIFe

Apart from the theoretical validation of SL's
capabilities to support collaborative learning
scenarios presented in a previous section, we
have implemented and evaluated the Jigsaw and
Fishbowl collaborative learning techniques in SL.
The aim of the case study was to:

• Uncover usability problems regarding both

the SL platform, and the designed educa-
tional environment. Students as a group are
the major target audience of the education-
al 3D worlds (Prasolova-Førland, 2008).
Still, such worlds are often created and ad-
ministered by teachers, not always in full
compliance with the current actual needs
of the students. Therefore, their feedback
and discussions of the usefulness and ad-
equacy of various design features in dif-

Other Objects

In order to organize and offer all the above created
tools, animations, gestures, clothes and the neces-
sary help instructions for using them correctly,
we created some auxiliary objects. The objects
are the following:

A. Jigsaw Boxes: Five different boxes were
created (one for each group). Boxes were