In the past academic year we have been looking into using virtual environments for learning. Initial applications during the initial Second Life hype had left a lot of us uninspired. What afterall is the value of a virtual lecture theatre in which we can virtually raise our hands? And unfortunately many of the initial uses of Second Life were of that nature.

Our partnership with the Institutes of Quarrying and Asphalt technology yielded an opportunity to explore a much more interesting use of Second Life.

Through the creation of a Virtual Quarry, a safe and accessible learning environment was created that allows learners to learn by experience in way that would never be possible (practical, responsible) in real life. The quarry currently hosts health and safety exercises, and teaches the correct execution of blasting. In the year to come we are hoping to extend these scenarios both within the quarry, but also in other areas such as forensic sciences, environmental health and geology.

There are more interesting projects being carried out. In the UK, Daden Limited was one of the frontrunners, working with several partners in the creation of simulated scenario’s that supported problem based learning. The psychology department of the University of Derby was involved in one of these projects, and is still very active in this area. I’m not yet sure if this type of learning will find wide application as there are many practical barriers to overcome, cost not being the least of these. Nevertheless these are valuable and interesting experiments, and I’m looking forward to researching their aplication further.

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