31 December 2009

Teaching Avatars

James Cameron's latest release Avatar has made online virtual worlds such as Second Life (SL) more popular than ever as audiences sit up and take notice of the possibilities of these sites. Users are currently using these sites to socialise and connect using free voice and text chat through personalised avatars or computerised self-representations. However, these sites also hold out the possibility to become places where educators are discovering academic possibilities. SL, for example, provides virtual homes for some of the world's most prestigious universities such as Harvard and Stanford who have bought virtual land with Linden Dollars.

Although this seems to be somewhat of a trend in the West it has yet to catch on in the Middle East. Campus Notes spoke to educators in the UAE to gauge how long it will take before students take their seats in a virtual classroom. Researchers at Zayed University catch on to the possibilities of teaching in virtual reality. Using OpenSimulator, often called OpenSim, they teach students about the basics of 3D concepts and the principles of server building within a virtual world. OpenSim is an open source server platform that hosts virtual worlds and can be accessed by multiple protocols. This means it is free software created for everyone to use.

More information:

http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/uae/education/teaching-avatars-1.558265