Creating Context for Educational Research in Virtual Worlds: An Invitation to Dialogue

In this special issue of the International Journal of Gaming and Computer-Mediated Simulations we provide a compilation of the top five papers as rated by reviewers and executive officers of the Applied Research in Virtual Environments for Learning Special Interest Group (ARVEL SIG), presented at the 2009 annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA). Also included in this issue is an invited book review, as well as this introduction that serves as an overview and an invitation to scholars abstraCt

[1]  Hazard Adams.  Critical Theory Since Plato , 1971 .

[2]  William Winn,et al.  Designing virtual worlds for use in mathematics education: the example of experimental algebra , 1992 .

[3]  Deborah A. Fields,et al.  Multi-Modal Investigations of Relationship Play in Virtual Worlds , 2010, Int. J. Gaming Comput. Mediat. Simulations.

[4]  Clark Aldrich,et al.  Learning by Doing: A Comprehensive Guide to Simulations, Computer Games, and Pedagogy in e-Learning and Other Educational Experiences , 2005 .

[5]  Henry Jenkins.  Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century , 2006 .

[6]  James M. Keller,et al.  Multiple criteria decision making (MCDM) using fuzzy logic: an innovative approach to sustainable agriculture , 1995, Proceedings of 3rd International Symposium on Uncertainty Modeling and Analysis and Annual Conference of the North American Fuzzy Information Processing Society.

[7]  Alexandra Rankin Macgill,et al.  Teens, Video Games, and Civics: Teens' Gaming Experiences Are Diverse and Include Significant Social Interaction and Civic Engagement. , 2008 .

[8]  Lisa Dawley,et al.  Social network knowledge construction: emerging virtual world pedagogy , 2009 .

[9]  Richard Bartle,et al.  Designing Virtual Worlds , 2003 .

[10]  Brian C. Nelson,et al.  A design-based research strategy to promote scalability for educational innovations , 2006 .

[11]  Eric Deeson.  Games and simulations in online learning - Edited by D Gibson , 2007, Br. J. Educ. Technol..

[12]  F. R. Farmer,et al.  The lessons of Lucasfilm's habitat , 1991 .

[13]  Chris Dede,et al.  Making Learning Meaningful: An explatory study of using multi-user environments (MUVEs) in middle school science. , 2005 .

[14]  Deborah Loewenberg Ball,et al.  2007 Wallace Foundation Distinguished Lecture—What Makes Education Research “Educational”? , 2007 .

[15]  S. Ross.  :Scholarship in the Digital Age: Information, Infrastructure, and the Internet , 2009 .

[16]  Mark W. Bell.  Toward a Definition of “Virtual Worlds” , 1970 .

[17]  Thomas Keating,et al.  The Virtual Solar System Project: Developing Conceptual Understanding of Astronomical Concepts Through Building Three-Dimensional Computational Models , 2002 .

[18]  Barbara Means,et al.  Evaluating educational technology : effective research designs for improving learning , 2003 .

[19]  Raymond C. Kurzweil,et al.  The Singularity Is Near , 2018, The Infinite Desire for Growth.

[20]  C. Dede.  Comments on Greenhow, Robelia, and Hughes: Technologies That Facilitate Generating Knowledge and Possibly Wisdom , 2009 .

[21]  Steven Warburton,et al.  Second Life in higher education: Assessing the potential for and the barriers to deploying virtual worlds in learning and teaching , 2009, Br. J. Educ. Technol..

[22]  Stephen C. Bronack,et al.  Rethinking Cognition, Representations, and Processes in 3D Online Social Learning Environments , 2007 .

[23]  E. Guba,et al.  Competing paradigms in qualitative research. , 1994 .

[24]  Chris Dede,et al.  Why Design-Based Research is Both Important and Difficult , 2005 .

[25]  Davood Salmani,et al.  FUZZY AND RESEARCH PARADIGMS RELATIONSHIP: A MUTUAL CONTRIBUTION , 2008 .

[26]  Leonard Reinecke,et al.  Creating Virtual Alter Egos or Superheroines? Gamers' Strategies of Avatar Creation in Terms of Gender and Sex , 2009, Int. J. Gaming Comput. Mediat. Simulations.