An Analysis of Identity and Education in Contemporary Virtual Worlds-What

Might Happen in the Future?

Charlotte Horne

Education in Virtual Worlds How education is used in virtual worlds?

‘The success, and wide reporting, of Second Life has helped to highlight the wider use of immersive worlds for supporting a range of human activities and interactions, presenting a wealth of new opportunities for enriching how we learn, how we work and how we play.’(Buckingham 2007)

Not everyone agrees with Virtual Worlds and Education mixingVygotsky: The constructivism model

‘Ultimately these resources provide students with an opportunity to recreate their physical world identity through supported staged exploration…’

Derby University’s Psychology Department

Identity in Virtual Worlds Gives you the ability to be whatever or

whoever you want to be!

‘This dynamic nature of self means that we are constantly changing our identities through choice or through circumstance’ (childs, 2011, p4).

Immersionists or Augmentationists?

VS

Are Identity and Education linked?

‘It was the educational philopsher Rousseau (1762) who proposed that education shapes who we are and laid one of the foundations for the notion of learning as a route to reforming our identity’ (Childs, p275)

Education supports our development and Identity reformation

Mark Childs believes that our physical situation has just as much impact on our identity as our social situation

Learning something new shapes our identity

‘A student’s digital identity is strongly bound to situation and previous experiences in physical world equivalents. Physical world identities and social norms had a strong impact on their interactions.’ (Childs p297)

Everyone is a digital citizen.

Could Identity be getting in the way of learning in Virtual Worlds?

Students wants to present the best version of themselves, are they doing the same in Virtual Worlds? Are students using second life in an immersionists way?

‘It could be argued, therefore, that situated attention through immersion in a virtual world is a key aspect of virtual world learning’. (Childs (p278)

On the other hand… It can be argued using Virtual World is a

fun way of engaging the students and motivating them!

‘Recent work in the gaming area has demonstrated how whole brain activity occurs when learners are playing games as opposed to limited brain activity when learners are learning in formal ways’ (de Freitas)

Virtual Worlds offer educational experiences that wouldn’t be possible in the Real World.

Future? I think virtual worlds will be used more for

education and the exploration of identity

Need to be cautious of the age of students using it.Children need to experience real life interactions and begin to develop an identity before they can begin to challenge one in Virtual Worlds

Technology is forever evolving – this could be the new classroom setting

As soon as technology advance enough to cut out all the little problems, such as loading too slowly, everyone could be learning in Second Life

ReferencesAzizi, Z & Rezaee, A. (2012). Journal of Language Teaching and Research. The Role of Zone of Proximal Development in the Students’ Learning of English Adverbs. 3 (1), 51-57.

Baym, N, K (2010). Personal Connections in the Digital Age . Cambridge: Polity Press. p5-109.

Buckingham (2007) Beyond Technology: Children's Learning in the Age of Digital Culture. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Childs, M. (2011a) ‘Identity: A Primer’, in Peachey, A. & Childs, M. (eds.) Reinventing Ourselves: Contemporary Concepts of Identity in Virtual Worlds. London: Springer.

Childs, M. (2011). Situated Learning in Virtual Worlds and Identity Reformation. In: Peachey, A. & Childs, M. Reinventing Ourselves: Contemporary Concepts of Identity in Virtual Worlds. London: Springer. p275-301.

de Freitas (2009) Serious Virtual Worlds: A scoping study. Bristol: Joint Information Systems Committee [online]. Available at: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/publications/seriousvirtualworldsv1.pdf (Last Accessed: 01/05/2013).

Savin-Baden, M (2010). A Practical Guide To Using Second Life in Higher Education. UK: Open University Press. p7-10.