An assessment on distance education in a 3D virtual environment: How to produce electricity in a hydroelectric power plant

In this study, a web-based 3D virtual environment well known the Second Life (SL) that people can be connected from all over the world, has been introduced and investigated the benefits on the distance education (DE). In the SL 3D virtual environment, a hydroelectric power plant has been built to understand how to produce electricity, and also students can observe the details of the plant´s structure and parts which cannot be shown even in a technical trip due to the plant is in-service. A few students interested in this topic have been taught and trained at distance access. At the end of this study, the SL 3D virtual environment has been evaluated the contributions on the DE and e-learning systems.