Illustrating abstract concepts by means of virtual learning artifacts

Abstract

Education is one of the most interesting applications of virtual worlds, as their flexibility can be exploited in order to create heterogeneous groups from all over the world who can collaborate synchronously in different virtual spaces. In this paper, we describe the potential of virtual worlds as an educative tool to teach and learn abstract concepts by means of programmable 3D objects. We describe the main experiences carried out recently in the application of these technologies in transnational educational activities that combine the Moodle learning resources and programmable 3D objects in the Second Life virtual world.