In this paper, we explore role-playing and experiential learning approaches applied in an immersive virtual environment for a professional counseling distance course. Training professional counselors requires practice and therefore possesses a challenge for the distant education. Although both counseling professionals' codes of ethics provide…

In traditional teacher-centered mathematics instruction, students might show low learning motivation owing to the lack of applied contexts. Game-based learning has been recognized as a potential approach to addressing this issue; however, without proper alignment between the gaming and math-applied contexts, the benefits of game-based learning…

Affect detection from open-ended virtual improvisational contexts is a challenging task. To achieve this research goal, the authors developed an intelligent agent which was able to engage in virtual improvisation and perform sentence-level affect detection from user inputs. This affect detection development was efficient for the improvisational…

Just a few years ago, virtual worlds were credited with the power to transform the universe. Used since the late 1990s in military and medical applications, virtual worlds first gained mainstream media attention when Linden Lab released Second Life in 2003. While other worlds, including open source environments, have launched since then (examples…

Games have always been a part of the human experience. Even the earliest of civilizations created games for enjoyment and entertainment. However, the educational value of those games is a relatively recent consideration. Over the previous fifty years, scholars have questioned the potential positive lessons learned from games such as Monopoly[R],…

Videogames have become a cultural and commercial phenomenon across the globe. Researchers and educators have been working to understand how to leverage these tools in education. However, there are few training opportunities that focus on the positive attributes of games in education for preservice teachers. This paper describes the preliminary…

While research indicates that an increasing number of males are experiencing a sense of disaffiliation with traditional education (Kleinfeld, 2006; Steinkuehler & King, 2009), nearly all teenage boys and young adult men (approximately 99%) regularly engage in playing video games of some sort (Roberts, Foehr & Rideout (2008). This is an interesting…

During the past two decades, digital games have become an increasingly popular source of study for academics, educational researchers and instructional designers. Much has been written about the potential of games for teaching and learning, both in the design of educational/serious games and the implementation of off-the-shelf games for learning.…

Effective virtual simulations can embed participants in imaginary worlds. Researchers working in virtual worlds and gaming often refer to "immersion," a state in which a participant or player loses track of time and becomes one with the simulation. Immersive settings have been shown to deepen learning. Ken Hudson's work with students…

This study investigated pre-service teachers' experience, motivation, passion, effort, and perspectives in playing exergames in the classroom using the self-determination theory as the main theoretical framework. One hundred forty preservice teachers participated in the study. A mixed method was used. Data included pre-survey and post-survey…

REEFGAME is a computer-assisted role-playing game that explores the interactions among management strategies, livelihood options, and ecological degradation in subsistence fishing communities. The tool has been successfully used in the Philippines and a variety of student workshops. In the field, REEFGAME operated as a two-way learning tool,…

An in-depth qualitative study with nine secondary pre-service teachers from an undergraduate "Language and Literacy" class was conducted to examine the potential of simulation using Second Life (SL) in teacher education. Games and simulations were operationally defined in the broadest sense to distinguish key characteristics between…

Background: Immersive virtual worlds are one of a range of different platforms that can be grouped under the concept of mediated environments, i.e. environments that create a metaphorical space in which participants can position themselves and be embodied. Synthesising the literatures concerning the various mediated environment technologies…

We implemented a five-week family program called "Family Quest" where parents and children ages 9 to 13 played Quest Atlantis, a multiuser 3D educational computer game, at a local after-school club for 90-minute sessions. We used activity theory as a conceptual and an analytical framework to study the nature of intergenerational play, the…

This study reviewed empirical research conducted in Second Life by educators since Second Life's launch in 2003. The study's purpose was to identify how Second Life is being used in both K-12 and higher education. The methodology, findings, and recommendations of 27 research studies were analyzed. Researchers identified potential problems when…