I've been using virtual worlds for education since 2006. This includes Second Life, but also Activeworlds, Open Croquet/Cobalt, serious game development with Unity3D and private OpenSimulator installations. I used them for higher education, for primary education and highschools, for on-the-job training of business managers and aircraft mechanics, and for large-scale corporate training providers. They provide unique opportunities for online learning taking advantage of both multiuser presence (as chatrooms) and spatial user arrangement, spatial context and immersion, etc. You can find many papers reporting this. I'm attaching two. One ("Can presence improve collaboration...") is an early effort to demonstrate how the concepts of Presence theory are intertwined with 3D virtual worlds as a new medium. For the more practice-oriented readers, the other one ("The attributes and advantages...") provides the rationale for using virtual worlds in professional training and how it enables trainees to be in contact with real scenarios, not just simulated ones. Finally, if you want a quick list of good practices for trainers using virtual worlds, VITA project's good practices handbook is a very nice resource: http://issuu.com/easpombas/docs/vita-101220-guide_of_good_practices_rev_final?e=0

The major hurdle is large scale deployment. A small group of enthusiast teachers can deploy and use virtual worlds successfully, but going beyond that to large scale deployment, with non-enthusiasts, requires more administrative support from computing systems and - alas - that is nowhere near readiness. I explain the challenges in a paper from 2013, which summarizes my experience ("Technology challenges...").

SLOODLE in my view tackles the problem from the wrong end. It mostly provides virtual world users with access to Moodle contents. That helps individual teachers and students. But if you want to deploy virtual worlds for an entire school, company, or region, you need to track events and provide support for all teachers, all trainers, all students. You'll want to manage virtual object repositories across courses and users. Some cumbersome solutions exist, but not straightforward ones.

In my 2009-2011 project for Portugal Telecom's Innovation arm (PTIn), my team tackled this and provided PTIn with a solution, which was deployed at a large telecom company, but not pursued as an active commercial product. Papers were not drafted then, but were now, and both the software architecture and the list of requirements that was developed throughout this large field effort should see the light of day soon.

Conference Paper Technology Challenges of Virtual Worlds in Education and Tra...

Article Can Presence Improve Collaboration in 3D Virtual Worlds?

Article The Attributes and Advantages of Virtual Worlds for Real Wor...

Advantage - increased co-presence and interactive elements

Disadvantage - learning curve and technology hiccups

These are brief thoughts, but these two things represent what immediately comes to mind when discussing this issue.

Dear Alexandros:

No experience although I've been asking the same question.  The problem with using such techniques to teach is "something" is traditionally education has been a technique of abstracting concepts, ideas etc. from that "something" be it nature (science) or people (psychology, sociology), etc.  Virtual worlds imitate reality instead of abstract from it.  

But to answer part of your question, the military is probably heavy into simulation games using virtual worlds.  Virtual games will probably be used to "indoctrinate", i.e. educate which is what education really is. I would think that creating a virtual world at this stage would be most useful in teaching foreign languages.  I'm building an interactive website as a prototype with SimCity as an avatar for a virtual world environment to "indoctrinate" students into 1) the need for sustainable science and engineering practice; 2) understanding systems thinking as it applies to sustainable practice and 3) become more adept at  higher level abstract thinking to to study sustainability more effectively and successfully. .

I think I'm going to have to ask by students as how they would use virtual gaming to this end as I don't have a cell phone much less play video games.

Thanks for the references and stimulating question

Mike

In the EU project  EUROVERSITY the experiences of a number of partners (n=19) with teaching in 3D  have been documented in case studies from which we are currently defining the 'lessons learned' in what we call the Euroversity Framework of Good Practice. http://www.euroversity.eu/

@Michael Tang: indeed quite a few projects were about language teaching & learning.

We would welcome any of you to join this initiative and share your experiences as we intend to keep developing the framework :

http://project.unimarconi.it/euroversity/index.php/network/join-the-network

@ Alexandros: So far no specific info on LMS links has been included so please do join us

http://www.euroversity.eu/

Alexandros, This is a great question. I have taught using Moodle for a long time, and developed courses in Moodle but I was not aware of this interesting Sloodle project. There are many students out there, who are already familiar with virtual worlds, and would probably enjoy participating in this and similar projects. One of former students even published a video on Youtube two years ago, about this concept (link below). 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQvbEbl1LF8#t=16

I've been using virtual worlds for education since 2006. This includes Second Life, but also Activeworlds, Open Croquet/Cobalt, serious game development with Unity3D and private OpenSimulator installations. I used them for higher education, for primary education and highschools, for on-the-job training of business managers and aircraft mechanics, and for large-scale corporate training providers. They provide unique opportunities for online learning taking advantage of both multiuser presence (as chatrooms) and spatial user arrangement, spatial context and immersion, etc. You can find many papers reporting this. I'm attaching two. One ("Can presence improve collaboration...") is an early effort to demonstrate how the concepts of Presence theory are intertwined with 3D virtual worlds as a new medium. For the more practice-oriented readers, the other one ("The attributes and advantages...") provides the rationale for using virtual worlds in professional training and how it enables trainees to be in contact with real scenarios, not just simulated ones. Finally, if you want a quick list of good practices for trainers using virtual worlds, VITA project's good practices handbook is a very nice resource: http://issuu.com/easpombas/docs/vita-101220-guide_of_good_practices_rev_final?e=0

The major hurdle is large scale deployment. A small group of enthusiast teachers can deploy and use virtual worlds successfully, but going beyond that to large scale deployment, with non-enthusiasts, requires more administrative support from computing systems and - alas - that is nowhere near readiness. I explain the challenges in a paper from 2013, which summarizes my experience ("Technology challenges...").

SLOODLE in my view tackles the problem from the wrong end. It mostly provides virtual world users with access to Moodle contents. That helps individual teachers and students. But if you want to deploy virtual worlds for an entire school, company, or region, you need to track events and provide support for all teachers, all trainers, all students. You'll want to manage virtual object repositories across courses and users. Some cumbersome solutions exist, but not straightforward ones.

In my 2009-2011 project for Portugal Telecom's Innovation arm (PTIn), my team tackled this and provided PTIn with a solution, which was deployed at a large telecom company, but not pursued as an active commercial product. Papers were not drafted then, but were now, and both the software architecture and the list of requirements that was developed throughout this large field effort should see the light of day soon.

Conference Paper Technology Challenges of Virtual Worlds in Education and Tra...

Article Can Presence Improve Collaboration in 3D Virtual Worlds?

Article The Attributes and Advantages of Virtual Worlds for Real Wor...

The Architecture students I tutor ,are expected to produce their designs as visual images.A few of them are moving towards the creation of 3D virtual worlds but this are fairly basic .This is due to a lack of time,computer memory and skill. I am a games player and love exploring virtual worlds. I also used Sim City as a practising architect.

A lot more could be done in my particular field.

I did my PhD in the area of using virtual worlds for the pedagogy of Action Learning. It may be of use.

Affordances of Virtual Worlds for professional development conducted using Action Learning

http://eprints.usq.edu.au/21389/

I agree with Leonel that there is a challenge to get new users supported adequately as it is a very different paradigm of computer use and teaching for many.

Replicating passive pedagogies of sit and watch the guru speak doesn't take advantage of the environment but, just like in person lectures, sometime the before and after class relationship building between students and the ability to "hang out" can be very valuable. Usually other online platforms such as video conferencing don't have a lot of capacity for that.

Where the 3D environment adds significantly to a different experience for learners (languages, architecture, historical recreations, simulations and such), there can be a massive gain for learners. I am a total enthusiast for virtual worlds but I am not a very traditional teacher mainly focusing on project based and inquiry approaches.

However I see many students who want to take a minimalist approach to their university study. They are working, parenting and studying and they want the path of least resistance. This may affect their attitude to doing things differently when they have mastered the traditional methods.

It's a complicated question to be sure.

Lindy

VLEs are virtually inevitable in contemporary education delivery. Note of caution though: the dirver is sometimes as much economics as it is education. VLEs can and should never fully replace peer and teacher interaction. There is no doubt ghough that it is a very useful tool, if only ebcause it helps to promote indepandence in learners.

completely agree. 

I agree that VLEs are inevitable and the reason behind them is economic.  Gordon and Keith agree that virtual avatars should never replace real teachers, but that's what will happen.  The good news is that the avatars can't be any worse than real professors, at least in undergraduate education.  Coursera, which began as a partnership of elite global universities (Cambridge, MIT Stanford) is the future, with the elites teaching in ivy covered buildings to real students who can afford the tuition, with the rest of us getting their version of hand-me-down virtual education.  Of course traditional teachers are resisting the new technology, and for good reason that has nothing to do with learning.

The process towards greater use of virtual communication is certainly unstoppable. Ever growing student numbers based on economics and politics ,contrast with staff cuts and insufficient classrooms. However it can be redirected and interactive virtual lecture rooms/workshops should be encouraged. Directed by academics  with the virtual avatar  directly wired to a live operator  is more than possible. How much of the "real teacher" experience is  retained  depends on radical improvements in technology.  The start question of this thread shows the framework is in place how it develops depends on combined  input from "traditional "teachers and  the technologist of the virtual world.