What you need to make virtual worlds work as an instructional environment

Karl Kapp has some great suggestions for making virtual worlds work as an instructional environment – like the need for more than one person to be present. His suggestions come from his answer to questions he gets about keeping students engaged after class. I don’t know about you but I have scratched my head more than once at a failed virtual environment and wondered why. Then, duh…I remember; there was nothing to do! Kapp says:

We can’t expect students to hang out in the virtual world if we don’t have anything for them to do in the virtual world. If we want them to hang out in the virtual world and have “fun” we need to create engaging in-world environments that are asynchronous so they have activities to perform in the virtual world (and this takes some work.) Instructors must remember that virtual worlds are first and foremost social spaces.

(JC)
Complaint? Students Don’t Hang Out in Virtual Worlds After Class | Kapp Notes | Karl Kapp | 27 October 2008

Tagged as: Virtual Worlds