Developing Virtual Environments for Educational Use : A Case-Study of the Attempt to Improve the Virtual Island of Rosario as a Learning Platform
Gröndahl, Catharina (2010)
Gröndahl, Catharina
Arcada - Nylands svenska yrkeshögskola
2010
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 1.0 Finland
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2010061612288
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2010061612288
Tiivistelmä
The main purpose of this thesis is to research the possibilities regarding the development of a virtual environment used in education, with focus on Arcada's Second life based Marinetta Ombro project. The Thesis is aimed at those interested in virtual education in Second life. It is written based on the assumption that the reader has no prior experience of Second Life, and also serves as an introduction to the subject. There are three major parts in this thesis. The first two parts address general, research questions regarding the culture of Second life (with focus on content creation) and virtual education. These parts also contain important background information for the reader concerning the main part of the thesis. The main part of the thesis consists of a walk through the planning, designing and rebuilding of the virtual island of Rosario, a key part in the Marinetta Ombro project. By defining the flaws in the previous version of Rosario, and building an updated version, the aim is to create a virtual space that can better meet the needs of virtual education. The final conclusions concern the possibilities for improving a virtual educational space and are drawn from this. The conclusions are focused on content creation and the Second Life culture. The conclusions also contain suggestions for topics that need further research. These are mainly focused on the specific case of Arcada, instead of virtual educational spaces in general. The thesis does not research into the subjects of technical benefits or challenges in Second life, nor the increasing interest in using Second life for business.