Pre-Service Teachers in Second Life: Potentials of Simulations

Abstract

An in-depth qualitative study with nine secondary pre-service teachers from an undergraduate Language and Literacy class was conducted to examine the potential of simulation using Second Life (SL) in teacher education. Games and simulations were operationally defined in the broadest sense to distinguish key characteristics between them. This study identified a number of ways (e.g., extra credit option, supplementary tool, and enhancement to teaching and learning) SL could be used as an educational tool to engage students in learning.There is a large and growing body of theoretical research on the benefits of games and simulations in education (Dickey, 2010;Inman, Wright, & Hartman, 2010;Paul, 2008;Schiller, 2002). However, there has been relatively little in-depth triangulated research on the benefits of using simulations in teacher education. The scenario is further exacerbated by the lack of consistency in the terms used among researchers in the field. In order to provide clarity, this article attempts to present an overview of games and simulations before examining nine secondary pre-service teachers' experiences in Second Life.

Learning to teach with simulation: historical insights

“…According to Ledger et al (2022), benefits of SL focused on pedagogic transformations (Kim & Blankenship, 2013), replicating real world role-plays (Cho et al, 2015), opportunity to engage in collaborative and reflective practice (Muir et al, 2013;Nussli et al, 2014;, sense of place and self (Teoh, 2012), positive online presence and virtual teaching performance (Badilla Quintana et al, 2017), and confidence for those that feel self-conscious in real-life settings (Mørch et al, 2018).…”

To social with social distance: a case study on a VR-enabled graduation celebration amidst the pandemic

“…MUVEs are afforded by different forms of VR, such as web-based applications (e.g., Mozilla Hubs), desktop 3D virtual environment (e.g., SecondLife), and VR with HMDs (e.g., ENGAGE). One of the salient places for MUVE research and practices is at the education sector, in which learning content can be simulated, real-life contexts can be created and repeated, physical and social interactions can be achieved, and details can be deliberately included (Garris et al 2002 ; Teoh 2012 ). In the educational settings, 3D desktop MUVEs such as SecondLife and OpenSimulator are used to teach content knowledge (e.g., Chen 2016 ; Halvorson et al 2011 ; Wang and Braman 2009 ; Zhang 2013 ), train pre-service teachers or student instructors (e.g., Gregory and Masters 2012 ; Ke and Xu 2020 ; Muir et al 2013 ), help students with special needs (e.g., Ke et al 2015 ; Wang et al 2018 ; Moon et al 2020 ), and so on.…”