3-D Environments

3-D Environments

David Locke, Memorial University of Newfoundland

Definitions and background

3-D environments are computer-simulated, realistic settings in which users can virtually explore, interact and problem-solve (Wang, 2012). To date, most online teaching and learning has been carried out using 2-D environments in which participants can interact but are generally “limited to text” (Omale, Hung, Luetkehans, & Cooke-Plagwitz, 2009, p. 482) when doing so. 3-D environments are able to remove this limitation by providing each participant with a customizable, virtual character – called an avatar (Lim, Nonis, & Hedberg, 2006) – which can then be used to “interact with other avatars as well as objects within the environment” (Berns, Gonzales-Pardo, & Camacho, 2013, p. 211). Until fairly recently, these 3-D environments were only used by a minority of the population and very few of them were specifically designed with education in mind (Livingstone, Kemp, & Edgar, 2008).

Over the last decade, however, this has begun to change and some educators are taking advantage of both types of environments; Sloodle, for example, combines the immersive 3-D environment of Second Life with the more common 2-D learning environment of Moodle (Livingstone et al., 2008). Developers have also started creating 3-D environments specifically for education, such as Quest Atlantis, which consists of learning quests and unit plans but also has many game-like features (Lim et al., 2006).