Learning in Virtual Worlds: The Challenges and Opportunities

Virtual environments are revolutionizing almost every aspect of the learning process; the learners live in interactive cyberspaces where they can communicate and collaborate globally in various ways. With the arrival of the Net Generation and the challenges and possibilities that the use of virtual reality brings to learning, the use of virtual simulations extends its possibilities to content access transforming education in a participatory and immersive experience. Virtual reality provides optimal support for information storage, retrieval and manipulation. Capitalizing on the awesome power of virtual reality for educational uses will permanently change the nature and course of how students learn. Virtual reality provides students with an unprecedented chance to explore, engage, and visualize the complex processes like never before. This paper explores the use of Second Life, a virtual learning environment, in higher education systems, and the potential possibilities of such virtual environments for teaching and learning in the 21st Century.