Abstract
What might online communities and informal learning practices teach us about virtual world pedagogy? In this chapter we describe a research project in which learning practices in online worlds such as World of Warcraft and Second LifeTM (SL) were investigated. Working within an action research framework, we employed a range of methods to investigate how members of online communities define the worlds they encounter, negotiate the terms of participation, and manage the incremental complexity of game worlds. The implications of such practices for online pedagogy were then explored through teaching in SL. SL eludes simple definitions. Users, or “residents”, of SL partake of a range of pleasures and activities – socialising, building, creating and exhibiting art, playing games, exploring, shopping, or running a business, for instance. We argue that the variable nature of SL gives rise to degrees of ambiguity. This ambiguity impacts on inworld social practices, and has significant implications for online teaching and learning.
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Acknowledgments
The project “Learning from Online Worlds, Teaching in Second Life” was supported by the Eduserv Foundation. Commentary and papers from the project can be found at: http://learningfromsocialworlds.wordpress.com/
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Carr, D., Oliver, M., Burn, A. (2010). Learning, Teaching and Ambiguity in Virtual Worlds. In: Peachey, A., Gillen, J., Livingstone, D., Smith-Robbins, S. (eds) Researching Learning in Virtual Worlds. Human-Computer Interaction Series. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-84996-047-2_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-84996-047-2_2
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