Education in Virtual Worlds

3D world Kitely

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Details: Category: Virtual Worlds; Last Updated on 10. Oct 2015; Published on 26. Aug 2015; Written by A.Nowak; Hits: 5302

One of my recent visits to Kitely World, where many schools have private sims, led me to a public sim dedicated to the famous Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen.

The medieval town has rivers, mountains, lakes, castles, a market, huts, cabins, a wind mill, an old house, carts, ships, animals, a pub and a shop where you can get the figures that are spread around the sim and a few other articles for free.

The figures of medieval people and the role they played in Andersen's novels make the sim lively even if you are alone there.

On the top floor of the timber pub avatars can click through the short biography of Andersen or discover his paper cuts.

Walking round the sim is a real immersion into medieval life, suddenly you will discover that you are in the middle of a scene in "The Princess and the Pea" , "The Emperor's New Clothes" or "The Wild Swans" wherever you go, you will find yourself in the middle of a novel.

Wondering around through fairy tales I fell in the sea by accident only to discover that I continued to be in the middle of more tales, there I was looking at a sunken ship, when I walked further I could see a golden treasure and not far from there I spotted a little mermaid. I had to laugh as I imagined students jumping into the sea to explore finding more stories. In every corner you will be rewarded with fairy tales you might not know yet; you have to fly in order to make sure you are not missing a scene.

One of the castles has paintings of different novels, there are also books you can click, which will open up a link to a homepage with Andersen's writings. The homepage is a wonderful tool to learn more about Andersen.

How comes that you can be in the middle of a novel every time you move through the sim? I found the answer later on.

In the middle of a field there is a figure representing Andersen sitting on a suitcase, next to it there is a sign with his probably nicest thought "Everything you look at can become a fairy tale and you can get a story from everything you touch"

The sim is a real treasure to take students to explore, they will spend hours learning in that medieval environment full of fairy tales. There are so many activities and games teachers and students can create! Treasure hunts, quizzes, story telling, etc.

Just keep the following in mind:

"Everything you look at can become a learn experience and you can get a lesson from everything you touch in the sim"

It would be great to have more sims like this one dedicated to different writers where language and history teachers could make an adventure of every lesson using 3D virtual worlds.

The real story behind the homepage made with so much love is as worth reading as Andersen's stories.

You will learn more about Kitely in my next article.

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What is global learning? Global Learning means to learn about world issues important for everybody; it is about learning to understand the way the world works. Children and grownups learn about other cultures by interacting with them directly without barriers, they learn how other peoples live; they share experiences and knowledge in order to make a better world. Interaction with other countries gives the groups an insight into the culture, economy, history, geography and climate of a foreign country; they learn for instance the correlation between actions taken in one country and their consequences in another. Political decisions in one country can lead to war in other countries, while overfishing in one country may cause famine in another and so on.(read also Mobile Project with Brazil)

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Many schools have been using mobile devices to teach. Some schools even have their own apps. Universities rely on Mobile Learning because of the advantages. Primary schools use mobile devices because they have proved to be useful in many ways, for example for disabled kids. Many schools talk about their experiences with Mobile Learning and their positive results. But what do students think? Do they have a different view of Mobile Learning or even further ideas on how can Mobile Learning help us in future? One student explains why Mobile Learning should be standard learning. All in all, we can summarize: Mobile Learning is the future.