Practicing Collaboration Skills through Role-play Activities in a 3d Virtual World

In this chapter we report on the preliminary findings of a case study using the 3D virtual world Second Life in a pre-service teacher distance education program. We focus our analysis on role-playing and collaboration, two central aspects of social learning that we hypothesize this online learning environment is well equipped to support. We examined two sections of a graduate level special education teacher preparation course where thirty-four students participated in online learning activities, using Second Life as the primary educational platform. The results, based on qualitative analysis, showed that the sense of unselfconscious presence created through avatars and the immersion created by the 3D environment allowed learners to be engaged more effectively in practicing collaboration skills of a certain complexity (modeled after challenging classroom situations). Our data also indicate that synchronous online learning environments, represented by Second Life in our case, present great opportunities for combining traditional pedagogical approaches and virtual world pedagogy in order to overcome barriers between educational theory and pedagogical practice in teacher education programs.