Research

=Research and Theory =

Debates about the relationship of the classroom to video-gaming and virtual worlds have attracted much attention (see Byron Review 2007). While some researchers such as Squire (2002) write about the high levels of learner engagement in video-gaming, others such as Lim et al (2006) suggest that immersive environments may lead to loss of focus and distraction.

Virtual Worlds
Guy Merchant in his chapter on "Virtual Worlds in Real-Life Classrooms" writes that virtual worlds allow educators to model different kinds of teacher-learner relationships, different forms of learning and interaction, and the recognition of different formats and genres of literacies. Traditional teaching methods separate students by age level, whereas virtual worlds have the ability to encourage interaction amongst ages, abilities, classrooms, schools and geographical locations. Merchant argues that new technologies may also change our inherent ideologies about pedagogy and can disrupt the control traditionally exerted by educators. "So great is this threat of destabilization" he writes, "that a number of new technologies are currently excluded from educational settings and we continually attempt to police the online activity of our pupils." (Merchant 108). Therefore, educators who adopt these technologies for the classroom must prepare for the possibility of experimenting with new student-teacher relationships, taking risks, and learn from their students' expertise.

Merchant stresses the need for more research on the effectiveness of such resources in the classroom, however, and notes the problematic nature of observing virtual worlds, whereby the researcher must interact in order to observe. As with all forms of participatory action research, the researcher's presence in the phenomena being studied can influence the very nature of the interactions. The alternative is to have the researcher's avatar be invisible via administration rights, but as Merchant points out, this is an unethical observation method (98).

Merchant describes the development process of a virtual world called Barnsborough. In the designing process the educators referred to what kinds of literacies "could be taken //out// of the virtual world" rather than seeing the literacies already //within// the virtual world (101). He also explains various decisions that the group of educators made in creating this virtual world: that the private chat functions (the "whispers") would be turned off, students would be blocked access to some parts of the world, and teleporting opportunities were restricted. These decisions, explains Merchant, were to help maintain control over the students' interactions and to guide students to certain areas of the world that were related to traditional literacy activities. Reflecting on these decisions, Merchant writes:

"In a sense, the virtual world was beginning to become more like the real world, with students being guided in their exploration of Barnsborough in a way that often resembled a school outing. Our perceived responsibility as educators meant that, in the name of safety and professional compliance to a particular discourse about literacy, we created a walled garden: a closed system which would make surveillance easier and learning more controlled. In short we constructed boundaries that could be policed in an attempt to re-create a unified social world" (103).

Barab, Gresalfi and Arici explain results of a comparison study, in which one student group was taught a science curriculum using their virtual world, Quest Atlantis, while another group learned the same curriculum in traditional methods. The conclusions found that the students who were taught the curriculum with the virtual world, learned more science concepts, showed higher engagement and demonstrated more intrinsic motivation

Barab, Sasha, Melissa Gresalfi and Anna Arici. “Transformational Play: Why Educators Should
Care about Games.” //Educational Leadership.// Sep 2009. Web. 01 Mar 2010. . Furthermore, after two months the students who used Quest Atlantis remembered more science content than the other group. There are of course other possible motivating factors, such as the educator was more excited or motivated using the Quest Atlantis program, and more studies will need to be conducted to be conclusive, but it is an interesting starting point to begin to analyze how virtual worlds are effective pedagogical tools.