Facilitating Immersion in Virtual Worlds
Helen Farley · Advances in mobile and distance learning book series · 2013
Virtual worlds, in particular Second Life and Open Sim, are providing welcome opportunities for the development of innovative curricula for tertiary educators, particularly those engaged with distance education. They provide a virtual meeting ground for those students and teachers who are geographically remote from one another, rendering distance irrelevant and enabling the formation of community. This chapter looks at those factors—physical, social, virtual, and those related to pedagogy—which facilitate immersion in virtual worlds; that suspension of disbelief which generates the feeling of presence or “being there,” crucial to promoting student engagement and ultimately, flow.