Using Second Life as a company creation platform in a marketing major class of a business bachelor program in Switzerland (original) (raw)
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International Journal of Information and Communication Technology Education, 2014
Frequently, research on management education does not take into account the role of Information Technology as a key resource to support teaching and learning processes. In this article, the authors explore the current applications of Three Dimensional Virtual Worlds (3DVW) for Management education. The authors researched the educational institutions subscribed to Second Life (SL) (http://secondlife.com/), as it is one of the most popular open 3DVW available worldwide. The results reveal that only 31% of the institutions that answered the authors’ questionnaire actually use SL in Management education. Regarding the acceptance of SL in Management education, one third of the 15 institutions using it claim that it has been well received and accepted both by students and lecturers/professors. These results lead to several questions for further research and development of practices concerning the use of 3DVW for Management education.
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Many educators around the world have shown an interest in three-dimensional virtual world such as second life in order to increase the level of student engagement. This paper aims to study on the implementation of second life in Higher Education. The research methodology was analyzing and synthesizing the literature review. The literatures were reviewed to determine items relevant to three-dimension virtual world environment, second life, implementation and outcome. A total of 58 papers, published from 2003 to 2012, were selected from articles, documents, websites and related research. The result of implementing second life in higher education reveled the elements of learning outcome: increase level of student engagement and the elements of concept in using of three-dimensional virtual world in 4 factors: 1) Metaphorical projection 2) Virtual reality system 3) learning module and 4) Designers, students, teachers. These factors are important components of educational virtual world in order to achieve the success of using second life for enhance students engagement in learning.
Journal of Information …, 2009
The context of Information Communication Technology (ICT) is changing dramatically. Today, Web 2.0 applications such as Facebook and MySpace are used ubiquitously in the general population, and Virtual Worlds are becoming increasingly popular in business, for example via simulations in Second Life. However the capacity of Virtual Worlds is underutilised in educational contexts. Educational institutions in general, but especially those offering Information Systems (IS) courses, must keep pace with emerging ICT and social trends or risk becoming irrelevant. Furthermore, there are particular pedagogical advantages in utilising emerging technologies such as Virtual Worlds in IS education. For instance, Second Life offers an intrinsically motivating, safe, and low cost environment in which to learn IS-related skills such as programming, requirements analysis, systems development, project management, and business process modelling. Drawn from the experience of the authors and current innovations in pedagogical research and practice, suggestions are made for curriculum design and implementation of Second Life in IS Education, including: the benefits of blending the real and Virtual Worlds; enhancement of students' intrinsic motivation; industry-relevant skill transfer; and innovative education that transcends traditional pedagogical practices. These points are illustrated with reference to case studies of IS student projects in Second Life from the University of Hamburg and Curtin Business School. Attention is given to current limitations of this emerging technology, regarding hardware, software, and connectivity. Future developments in both the technology and how it is implemented in educational contexts, integrating the real and virtual worlds via emerging technologies, are mentioned.
Second Life : New opportunity for higher educational institutions
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We would like to sincerely thank our tutor and mentor Olga Sasinovskaya for her guidance and assistance throughout the course of this paper. A special gratitude is also dedicated to the other groups in our tutoring sessions for their constructive feedback. Moreover, we would like to show our gratefulness to the teachers and universities, which were interviewed and thank them for their support and cooperation. These were:
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