Presence and Pedagogy: The Potentials of Multi-user Virtual Environments as Learning Spaces

Abstract

Theoretical concepts in Humanities and Social Science disciplines are notoriously slippery for students to grasp, with often competing sets of discourses. At the Graduate level, teaching faculty often expect that students will be both better prepared, and more willing, to engage with such complexities. This is not always the case, however, leaving faculty searching for methods to facilitate students' understanding. In this paper, I discuss one such method and provide examples of student feedback about its effectiveness. The initiative in question involves a virtual in which graduate Sociology students create their own avatar and then write a short reflective field trip report paper on the process of identity construction in a Multi-User Virtual Environment (MUVE) called Second Life™. The exercise requires students to engage in several levels of situated, problem-based learning - a process perhaps best described as praxis. In reflecting on the possibilities and limitations they experience during this particular exercise, students encounter manifestations of theoretical concepts drawn from Symbolic Interaction, identity discourse and the interface between identity and embodiment. In my discussion of this exercise, I provide a brief background to the virtual field trip as a pedagogic strategy and suggest some best practice guidelines. I situate the initiative within the developing field of virtual pedagogy, and argue that the enhanced sense of presence in MUVEs provides students with opportunities to manifest theoretical concepts through praxis and playful experimentation.