Using 3D Virtual Environment as an Educational Tool in a Middle Eastern University

Abstract

A virtual environment can be anything the users desire it to be; it is their personal, virtual life. Many people cannot physically attend college to undertake their degrees. Even though many educational institutions are providing online courses and degrees, these are still not as interactive as in real life. By using a 3-D virtual environment for educational purposes, users can interact via their own graphical and humanoid self-representations, known as ‘avatars’. The virtual world Second Life is used in this research as instructors can use SL to communicate with students and to create objects that can be used to teach course content and skills. The idea of using a virtual environment for educational purposes will involve building a virtual land for the Faculty of IT at one of the universities in Jordan (Petra University). This will enable anyone to virtually access and communicate with the faculty from anywhere in the world. This virtual campus will help solve students’ problems, providing details about the content and services the faculty provides, support the social awareness of students and increase communication and discussions on a wide scale.