Master’s Thesis in Informatics Using Virtual World in Education: The case of Second Life

With technology being advanced and many new teaching methods being implemented, considering virtual worlds for teaching is quite innovative and interesting. A virtual environment is an artificially constructed representation of a natural or imagined environment. Virtual worlds consist of enactment for terrains, avatars, objects, textures, and other forms of digital assets. Many virtual worlds like Alpha World, Delta 3D, Second Life etc. are available today. An avatar can be defined as a computer user’s representation of him/her-self within the virtual environment. Today, educational institutes have been using virtual worlds in various fields like designing user interfaces, nursing courses, cooperate training, leadership training programmes. But certain aspects need to be examined thoroughly like how virtual spaces are influencing education, how students and teachers understand learning in virtual worlds while interacting through avatars where communication lacks body language and is limited to seeing, hearing and talking. Our study was conducted on a single course called Business Talking offered in Second Life by Linnaeus University