Virtual worlds in Australian and New Zealand higher education: remembering the past, understanding the present and imagining the future

3D virtual reality, including the current generation of multi-user virtual worlds, has had a long history of use in education and training, and it experienced a surge of renewed interest with the advent of Second Life in 2003. What followed shortly after were several years marked by considerable hype around the use of virtual worlds for teaching, learning and research in higher education. For the moment, uptake of the technology seems to have plateaued, with academics either maintaining the status quo and continuing to use virtual worlds as they have previously done or choosing to opt out altogether. This paper presents a brief review of the use of virtual worlds in the Australian and New Zealand higher education sector in the past and reports on its use in the sector at the present time, based on input from members of the Australian and New Zealand Virtual Worlds Working Group. It then adopts a forward-looking perspective amid the current climate of uncertainty, musing on future directions and offering suggestions for potential new applications in light of recent technological developments and innovations in the area.

[1]  Soonja Yeom,et al.  Augmented Reality for Learning Anatomy , 2011 .

[2]  C. Wankel.  Higher Education in Virtual Worlds : Teaching and Learning in Second Life , 2010 .

[3]  Tassos A. Mikropoulos,et al.  Educational virtual environments: A ten-year review of empirical research (1999-2009) , 2011, Comput. Educ..

[4]  V. Shute,et al.  Melding the Power of Serious Games and Embedded Assessment to Monitor and Foster Learning: Flow and Grow , 2009 .

[5]  Desmond A. Butler,et al.  Second Life machinima enhancing the learning of law: Lessons from successful endeavours , 2012 .

[6]  David Ellis,et al.  Sketching up new geographies: Open sourcing and curriculum development , 2013 .

[7]  Khe Foon Hew,et al.  Use of three-dimensional (3-D) immersive virtual worlds in K-12 and higher education settings: A review of the research , 2010, Br. J. Educ. Technol..

[8]  Kim Flintoff.  Second life/simulation: online sites for generative play , 2009 .

[9]  Barney Dalgarno,et al.  What are the learning affordances of 3-D virtual environments? , 2010, Br. J. Educ. Technol..

[10]  Thomas C. Reeves,et al.  A Guide to Authentic e-Learning , 2009 .

[11]  M. Savin-Baden,et al.  Situating pedagogies, positions and practices in immersive virtual worlds , 2010 .

[12]  David Cameron,et al.  Real Players?: Drama, Technology and Education , 2006 .

[13]  Denise Wood,et al.  Australian higher education institutions transforming the future of teaching and learning through 3D virtual worlds , 2010 .

[14]  Simeon J. Simoff,et al.  The City of Uruk: Teaching Ancient History in a Virtual World , 2012, IVA.

[15]  Stefan Schutt,et al.  Sustaining the future through virtual worlds , 2012 .

[16]  M. Cummins,et al.  2013 Technology Outlook for Australian Tertiary Education , 2013 .

[17]  Sarah L. Higley,et al.  In three dimensions: Art, machinima and the virtual university , 2013 .

[18]  Bertha Payne,et al.  The School of Education , 1908 .

[19]  Tony Clear,et al.  He ara hou ka tū mai: NZ institutions of higher learning unpacking demands and facilitating change , 2011 .

[20]  Torsten Reiners,et al.  Operationalising gamification in an educational authentic environment , 2012 .

[21]  Barney Dalgarno,et al.  Changing directions through VirtualPREX: engaging pre-service teachers in virtual professional experience , 2011 .

[22]  Marcus McDonald,et al.  Multidiscipline role-play in a 3D virtual learning environment: Experiences with a large cohort of healthcare students , 2012 .

[23]  Gilly Salmon,et al.  The future for (second) life and learning , 2009, Br. J. Educ. Technol..

[24]  Ken Pimentel,et al.  Virtual reality - through the new looking glass , 1993 .

[25]  David Jones,et al.  Bringing 'second life' to a tough undergraduate course: Cognitive apprenticeship through machinimas , 2008 .

[26]  Larry Johnson,et al.  Technology Outlook for Australian Tertiary Education 2012-2017: An NMC Horizon Report Regional Analysis , 2013 .

[27]  Ben Blachnitzky,et al.  Augmented reality , 2012, 2012 IEEE Hot Chips 24 Symposium (HCS).

[28]  C. Collins,et al.  Looking to the Future: Higher Education in the Metaverse. , 2008 .

[29]  Caroline Steel,et al.  Curriculum, technology & transformation for an unknown future. Proceedings ascilite Sydney 2010 , 2010 .

[30]  Stefan Schutt,et al.  How are Australian higher education institutions contributing to change through innovative teaching and learning in virtual worlds , 2011 .

[31]  Simeon J. Simoff,et al.  Generating diverse ethnic groups with genetic algorithms , 2012, VRST '12.