Effectiveness of Learning with the Support of a Virtual Environment (Experiment in University Teaching)

Abstract

Virtual worlds are very universal environments that can also be used as a didactic means that allows for the application of a wide range of activities, as well as various teaching forms and methods. The introductory section of the article presents a definition of virtual worlds on the conceptual and content levels, and also provides a description of their technological concept. The didactic-technological aspects that accelerate most of the opportunities to use virtual worlds within the education process have been determined using available knowledge. The main aim of the research was to clarify whether the appropriate use of virtual environment in the instruction leads to a corresponding student performance in cognitive learning. The partial aim of the research was a mutual comparison of two leaning virtual environments i.e. Second Life and Minecraft, selection of which was intentional as these have currently been the most widely used virtual environments. Application themes of the action research were focused mainly on the phenomena associated with the implementation of virtual collaborative environment. The assessment was realised by means of didactic and managerial criteria.