Virtual reality (VR) is an emerging technology that is gaining traction in K12 education. Whereas well-designed and engaging VR experiences may be considered educational, teacher educators with content-area expertise are uniquely positioned to analyze the actual content provided by those experiences when determining VR's educational value.…

This article examines what that immersion in virtual worlds has looked like for Jason (a pseudonym), a 21-year-old person diagnosed on the autism spectrum who has participated in virtual games since he was 12. Over the four years we have followed Jason, what has been noticeable is not only the increasing communication skills he has demonstrated,…

Distance education started being limited in comparison to traditional education. Distance teachers and educational organizations have overcome most of these limits, but some other limits still remain as challenges. One of these challenges is to collaboratively learn concepts in an immersive way, similarly to the education "in situ".…

Virtual worlds have become an invaluable space for online learning and the exploration of digital cultures. Communication departments can benefit from using these spaces to educate their students in the logistics of virtual worlds and as a way to better understand how the process of interpersonal and global communication functions in both online…

This paper describes and discusses a case study of postgraduate students undertaking accident investigation and risk assessment exercises in an online virtual world as part of their course curriculum. These exercises were constructed to overcome the ethical and practical barriers inherent in real-world exercises. In particular this paper focusses…

Technological advances on the Internet now enable students to develop participation skills in virtual worlds. Similar to controlling a character in a video game, multi-user virtual environments, or MUVEs, allow participants to interact with others in synchronous, online settings. The authors of this study created a link between MUVEs and…

This paper is focused on virtual campuses, i.e. virtual worlds representing real educational institutions that are based on the metaphor of a university and provide users with different learning tools. More specifically, the idea of integrating a virtual campus into the context of a virtual city is suggested. Such a virtual city, where students…