Usability and Affordances for Teaching and Learning in Second Life

This chapter presents a summary of research undertaken at the University of Hertfordshire into the usability and affordances of three-dimensional (3D) virtual environments (VE) used in teaching and learning. Our earlier experimental work identified important variables related to individual differences and how these affected task completion, learning, and attitude to the environment. More recently the results of these laboratory-based empirical studies have been applied to teaching and learning in the Second Life virtual world. The results of two studies are presented with undergraduate Computer Science students. In the first study the affordances of the Second Life environment for project group working and teaching was evaluated. In the second study small groups of learners developed real world games and modified these for play in Second Life. Based on experiences from these studies, a set of recommendations related to the use of 3D virtual environments in teaching and learning is presented.