his thesis consists of an analysis of a classroom simulation using a Second Life (SL) experiment that aims to investigate the teaching impact on smartbots (virtual students) from trainee teacher avatars with respect to interaction, simulated behaviour, and observed teaching roles. The classroom-based SL experiments' motivation is to enable the trainee teacher to acquire the necessary skills and experience to manage a real classroom environment through simulations of a real classroom. This type of training, which is almost a replica of the real-world experience, gives the trainee teacher enough confidence to become an expert teacher. In this classroom simulation, six trainee teachers evaluated the SL teaching experience by survey using qualitative and quantitative methods that measured interaction, simulated behaviour, and safety. Additionally, six observers evaluated trainee teachers' performance according to a set of teaching roles and roleplay approaches. The experiment scenario was set up between smartbots, trainee teacher avatars, and observer avatars in the virtual classroom, where smartbots are intelligent agents managing SL bots, and where groups are similar to one another but are under programming control.

This thesis describes a study carried out with the aim of discovering user preferences as to the design of 3-dimensional virtual worlds for accessing information. No literature was found which dealt with this topic, and it was therefore thought that, rather than ask users to make a selection from arbitrarily-chosen designs, it would be informative to consult the users from the beginning of the design process. To this end, a Grounded Theory methodology was adopted, and users were selected from postgraduate students and staff from Information Management courses at the Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen. Three “rounds” of interviews were conducted. The first round was concerned with finding out what ideas for a world design people would have, the second with testing four worlds derived from the first round, and the third with exploring further ideas that users had, based on their experience of the test worlds. At each stage of the process, emergent theories were constructed, and modified according to subsequent findings. It was established that the factors which influenced this group of users in their preferences for the design of worlds were not structural, as might have been assumed, but instead were related to properties such as familiarity, organisation, assistance, and quality of information and presentation. When the results were examined in the context of developments in the use of virtual environments, it was found that they provide a theoretical underpinning for practices such as the provision of “conventional” library structures in the popular online environment Second Life. This is not a statistical exercise, but it would appear that there are no significant differences based on the criteria of age, gender, or whether a user was staff or student. More thorough studies would be required to determine this absolutely, but for the moment it appears more useful to draw a broad set of conclusions. ii Issues were identified which indicate potentially rewarding areas for further research and design. Specifically, it would be of interest to discover whether the affective responses of these groups are also common to other groups, and to experiment further with worlds designed in the light of the current findings. Further investigation of the small number of cases in which users do not respond to the worlds would also be desirable, to determine whether this response is characteristic of a group of people who will not react positively to any world, or whether these users simply reacted negatively to the examples presented.

This thesis project presents possible uses of Virtual Reality for art education. To understand VR, this thesis reviews the history of using technology in educational environments and explores the concepts, definitions, and characteristics of VR in general. Then, it shows diverse purposes of VR for education and art educational environments. For an art class, the units present the use of Teen Second Life, which is a free on-line virtual world. The units demonstrate how art educators may use Teen Second life for high school art classes to build students’ understandings of their identities by creating their avatars, clothing, objects and artwork and by displaying the artwork in a virtual community. The purpose of this thesis project is to suggest possible uses of VR for art educational environments.

This thesis focuses on virtual world Second Life and its creator company Linden Lab. The theoretical part introduces elements of web, social networks and virtual worlds in general. The practical part of the thesis presents Second Life in detail, describes the possibilities for individuals and real-life institutions, together with the present achievements in individual fields. The company Linden Lab is presented in a separate chapter and its present income is estimated and then predicted from statistics of Second Life. The final chapter summarizes the potential barriers to further growth.

lt; p text-align="justify"gt;No presente estudo abordamos a análise das possíveis relações de interatividade em situações de aprendizagem à distância, nos mundos digitais virtuais tridimensionais (MDV3D), em especifico, no Second Life. Atendemos ao fato da necessária avaliação da qualidade das interações entre os sujeitos envolvidos no processo educacional, os interagentes, focalizando a interatividade entre os alunos, professores e tecnologia nos cursos e eventos observados. Com este fim, como aporte teórico consideramos as propostas de estudo de interatividade de Alex Primo (1998), a Teoria da Distância Transacional de Moore (1993), bem como as afirmações e posicionamentos de autores como Levy (1993, 1999), Peters (2001), Mattar (1999), Silva (1999) entre outros, que revitalizam os conceitos e o papel da EAD para a nova era das relações. Assim, abordamos a evolução e as mudanças nos processos de EAD no Brasil, analisamos os novos perfis e características de professores e alunos na cibercultura, assim como o uso de games e MDV3D como aporte para as novas necessidades educacionais dos sujeitos contemporâneos. A metodologia do processo de pesquisa utilizada para o desenvolvimento da investigação foi a abordagem qualitativa, sob a forma de observação participativa de cunho exploratório. Para realizar a pesquisa foi necessário que a pesquisadora se inserisse na realidade pesquisada, a partir da criação de um avatar, que seria a projeção de seu eu virtual. A coleta de dados foi realizada no MDV3D Second Life, através do estudo dos diálogos entre os participantes dos cursos e eventos ministrados no metaverso e realizados com o suporte das diversas tecnologias de comunicação disponíveis no ambiente. Após essa trajetória de estudos, pesquisas e análises é possível concluir que as relações estabelecidas nos processos educativos em ambientes virtuais, e mais propriamente em MDV3D, potencializados pela imersão que proporcionam, são relações sociais entre as pessoas envolvidas na dinâmica e estão em total sintonia com os objetivos da EAD, de disponibilizar oportunidades e promover o conhecimento através das relações colaborativas. A partir do arcabouço teórico analisado, inferimos que urge a integração do Design de Games ao Design Instrucional, bem como a parceria entre professores e alunos no desenvolvimento de práticas que consolidem o uso dos MDV3D como ferramentas de apoio à educação. Podemos afirmar que o Second Life, como exemplo de MDV3D, proporcionou um sistema aberto e colaborativo de ensino, com substancial grau de interatividade mútua, que é tida como plena, pois é caracterizada por relações interdependentes, onde cada interagente participa da construção inventiva e cooperada do relacionamento.lt;/pgt;

Komunikace je v dnešní době základním klíčem k úspěchu. Rychlost, dostupnost a kvalita předávaných informací je schopna ovlivnit nejen budoucnost firem, ale také jedinců. Cílem práce je poskytnout ucelený přehled o dostupných IT a SW prostředcích pro firemní komunikaci. E-mail, hlasová komunikace, videokonference, portály, ale také virtuální prostředí jsou postaveny proti klasickým formám komunikace jako je meeting a korespondence. V práci je vytvořena metodika umožňující srovnání jednotlivých forem komunikace z pohledu jejich vlastností, vhodností jejich použití pro různé modelové typy komunikace a možnosti jejich nasazení v interní a externí firemní komunikaci. Poslední kapitola práce demonstruje možnost aplikace zjištěných závěrů a získaných poznatků na středně velkou stavební firmu.

Tese de mestrado integrado. Engenharia Electrotécnica e de Computadores - Major de Telecomunicações. Faculdade de Engenharia. Universidade do Porto. 2008

Tese de mestrado integrado. Engenharia Electrotécnica e de Computadores (Major Telecomunicações). Faculdade de Engenharia. Universidade do Porto. 2010

No description available.

<p>Vad är Second Life? En värld på Internet som fungerar likt ett socialt nätverk men till skillnad från andra virtuella världar är det inte ett spel. Det är en förlängning av verkligheten. Man vinner ingenting i Second Life, förutom nya bekantskaper och fascinerande upplevelser i en vacker tredimensionell miljö. Den uppdaterade versionen av Internet har suddat ut gränserna mellan användare och producent. Second Life är ett resultat av samspelet mellan virtuell värld och verklighet. Den virtuella världens genombrott på webben är här.</p>