EDUCAUSE Review Articles, Virtual Worlds, and Learning

Virtual worlds can become an important tool in an educator’s arsenal. But using this tool requires a shift in thinking and an adjustment in pedagogical methods that will embrace the community, the fluid identity, and the participation—indeed, the increased conversation—that virtual spaces can provide.

With directed effort, some ingenuity, and a future-focused vision, colleges and universities should be able to identify and leverage existing technologies with which to build aspects of "future" campus learning spaces—today.

From Diana G. Oblinger, ed., Learning Spaces
As we build the classrooms of the future that facilitate usability, engagement, collaboration, and learning, we would do well to remember what it was about learning environments that enchanted us and commit ourselves to preserving, restoring, and creating those experiences for our own students.

To learn more about videogames in academe, the author spoke with five leading-edge thinkers in the field: James Paul Gee, J. C. Herz, Randy Hinrichs, Marc Prensky, and Ben Sawyer.