Teaching and Learning in Virtual Worlds

Virtual worlds are now everyday affairs, in the workplace, education and entertainment. For educators, virtual worlds offer motivating topography and global synchronicity. In-world, learners can assemble, discuss and disseminate content. They gain hands-on experience in simulations of expensive facilities, equipment, situations and processes that traditional print materials and cash-strapped institutions cannot provide. Learners can have a wide range of experiences, integrating their conceptual understanding with the practitioner’s realistic grasp of a field. Socially, virtual worlds level differences between people. Philosophically, virtual subjectivity has been an area of sustained academic interest, raising questions about identity, social presence and immersion. This volume explores these and other questions across a range of teaching and learning issues including ethics in counselling and therapeutic interventions, bot-scripted archaeology and language acquisition, virtual coral reefs and champagne poster sessions, physics and virtual sex.