Virtual worlds (e.g., Second Life) have been utilized in various fields such as business and education. However, the concept of virtual worlds neglects the learner’s context because everything happens in virtual reality. Context-awareness is essential in learning today, as learners are carrying smartphones which are capable of sensing their immediate context. Thus, we have proposed the concept of Distributed Pervasive Worlds which not only take into account the learner’s context but also consider the distributed nature of interaction within these worlds. In other words, distributed pervasive worlds merge the learners’ local contexts with a global (often virtual) distributed context, thus allowing multiple learners to interact. To demonstrate the concept of distributed pervasive worlds in action, we present the case of Running Othello exergame together with an evaluation. The paper details are as follows:
- Authors: Teemu H. Laine and Carolina Islas Sedano
- Title: Distributed Pervasive Worlds: The Case of Exergames
- Journal: Educational Technology & Society (SSCI)
This paper will be published in the ET&S journal’s special issue titled: Overcoming the technological hurdles facing virtual worlds in education: the road to widespread deployment.