Serious playground: using Second Life to engage high school students in urban planning

Kerry M Mallan; Marcus Foth; Ruth Greenaway; Greg T Young

doi:10.1080/17439884.2010.494432

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Serious playground: using Second Life to engage high school students in urban planning

Journal article

Open access

Peer reviewed

Serious playground: using Second Life to engage high school students in urban planning

Kerry M Mallan, Marcus Foth, Ruth Greenaway and Greg T Young

Learning, Media & Technology, Vol.35(2), pp.203-225

2010

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/17439884.2010.494432

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Abstract

Second Life

constructivist learning

text as game

urban informatics

play

virtual world

urban informatics

neogeography

Virtual world platforms such as Second Life have been successfully used in educational contexts to motivate and engage learners. This article reports on an exploratory workshop involving a group of high school students using Second Life for an urban planning project. Young people are traditionally an under-represented demographic when it comes to participating in urban planning and decision making processes. The research team developed activities that combined technology with a constructivist approach to learning. Real world experiences and purposes ensured that the workshop enabled students to see the relevance of their learning. Our design also ensured that play remained an important part of the learning. By conceiving of the workshop as a 'serious playground' we investigated the ludic potential of learning in a virtual world.

Details

Title: Serious playground: using Second Life to engage high school students in urban planning
Authors: Kerry M Mallan (Author) - Queensland University of Technology
Marcus Foth (Author) - Queensland University of Technology
Ruth Greenaway (Author) - Queensland University of Technology
Greg T Young (Author) - Queensland University of Technology
Publication details: Learning, Media & Technology, Vol.35(2), pp.203-225
Publisher: Routledge
Date published: 2010
DOI: 10.1080/17439884.2010.494432
ISSN: 1743-9892
Copyright note: Copyright © 2010 Taylor & Francis. This is an Author's Accepted Manuscript of an article published in Learning, Media & Technology 2010, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/17439884.2010.494432
Organisation Unit: University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland
Language: English
Record Identifier: 99448742802621
Output Type: Journal article

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