Identifying an appropriate pedagogy for virtual worlds: A Communal Constructivism case study
ARTICLE
Carina Girvan, Timothy Savage
Computers & Education Volume 55, Number 1, ISSN 0360-1315 Publisher: Elsevier Ltd
Abstract
As increasing numbers of educators explore the use of virtual worlds for education, there is a need to consider which pedagogical approaches can provide an opportunity to do more than recreate the traditional classroom by leveraging the unique characteristics and potential that the technology can offer. This study identifies Communal Constructivism as a potentially appropriate pedagogy for use in the virtual world Second Life. Five groups of learners took part in a learning experience specifically designed to provide opportunity for the features of Communal Constructivism to emerge through the affordances of the technology. The chat logs, learning artefacts, post-activity semi-structured interviews and researcher’s observations from each of the five groups were analysed to explore participants’ experiences and both the operation and outcome of the pedagogy in action. Findings from the qualitative analysis of the data sets indicate that learners collaboratively constructed knowledge for themselves as a group and for others, as the features of the pedagogy emerged.
Citation
Girvan, C. & Savage, T. (2010). Identifying an appropriate pedagogy for virtual worlds: A Communal Constructivism case study. Computers & Education, 55(1), 342-349. Elsevier Ltd. Retrieved March 19, 2024 from https://www.learntechlib.org/p/66606/.
This record was imported from Computers & Education on January 31, 2019. Computers & Education is a publication of Elsevier.
Full text is availabe on Science Direct: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2010.01.020Keywords
- case studies
- collaborative learning
- computer mediated communication
- Computer Simulation
- Computer Uses in Education
- Constructivism (Learning)
- Cooperative learning
- Discourse Analysis
- Instructional Effectiveness
- Interactive Learning Environments
- internet
- Interviews
- Learning Experience
- pedagogical issues
- Synchronous Communication
- Teaching/Learning Strategies
- virtual worlds
- Web Sites
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