The rapid evolution of virtual reality (VR) technologies and their adoption for learning opens up new possibilities for shifting semiotic content across modes, with underexplored scope for transmediating content in visual, haptic, and auditory ways in immersive media literacy practices. This research investigated users' creative digital designing…

This article aims to contribute new knowledge about the media literacies children assemble as they play the digital game "Minecraft" which it describes as a children's digital making platform. The article argues media literacy's tendency to use socio-cultural and humanist accounts of media participation limit its ability to fully explain…

This paper discusses gaming in a Western Australian school for boys. The overriding ethos of the school is supportive of the potential of ICT to better engage students and deliver enhanced educational outcomes. The school sees game-based design as at the vanguard of innovation, but also accepts its important duty of care responsibilities. Tensions…

Education in virtual worlds has the potential, it seems, for engaging students in innovative ways and for enabling new discourses on a host of issues. Virtual locations like "Second Life," "Kaneva," or "World of Warcraft," among other multi-user virtual environments (MUVEs), also come with unique challenges for educators as they consider the…

This article explores the potential benefits of creating "virtual ecosystems" from real-world data. These ecosystems are intended to be realistic virtual representations of environments that may be costly or difficult to access in person. They can be constructed as 3D worlds rendered from stereo video data, augmented with scientific data, and then…

The "Immersed in Learning" project began in 2007 to evaluate the use of 3D virtual worlds as a teaching and learning tool in undergraduate programmes in digital media at the University of Wolverhampton, UK. A question that the research set out to explore was what were the benefits of integrating 3D immersive learning with face-to-face…

This study interrogates the idea of using videogames and game-like virtual worlds as a means to advance studio education pedagogy. Looking at a series of case studies of urban planning courses taught using "Second Life," the results describe the potentials, and limits, of this emerging digital media. Key findings are that the virtual worlds…

Nowhere in the current digital technology landscape is the process of "blurring the lines between media" more apparent than with the uses and applications of gaming practices and technologies. Here the overlaps between new media and media interfaces are becoming significant as games technologies and practices are becoming more pervasive as…

This study investigated the relationship between the use of a three-dimensional Virtual Reality Learning Environment for Field Trip (3DVLE[subscript (ft)]) system and the achievement levels of senior high school earth science students. The 3DVLE[subscript (ft)] system was presented in two separate formats: Teacher Demonstrated Based and Student…

This paper will undertake a critical review of the impact of virtual reality tools on the teaching of history. Virtual reality is useful in several different ways. History educators, elementary and secondary school teachers and professors, can all profit from the digital environment. Challenges arise quickly however. Virtual reality technologies…

Virtual worlds have been linked with e-learning applications to create virtual learning environments (VLEs) for the past decade. However, while they can support many educational activities that extend both traditional on-campus teaching and distance learning, they are used primarily for learning content generated and managed by instructors. With…

This article presents the results of a three-year study of "Gamestar Mechanic" (www.gamestarmechanic.com), a flash-based multiplayer online role-playing game developed for the MacArthur Foundation's digital media learning initiative by the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Gamelab in New York. The game's objective is to help children…