Educators explore virtual reality as online learning tool - Scott Knuteson, Air University

Educators explore virtual reality as online learning tool - Scott Knuteson, Air University

Some people teleported, others flew and some just walked into the holographic auditorium for the Global Learning Forum event here Nov. 19. Though they arrived by different means, everyone in attendance had one thing in common: they did not really exist. Neither did the lecture hall in which they were seated, nor the lectern from which someone spoke. The real-life education center of the Air Force at Air University sponsored the event in conjunction with professors from Vanderbilt University, located in real-life Nashville. They, along with anyone who wished to attend, arrived virtually via a computer program called Second Life. The program, a computer simulation game, uses the Internet to allow people from all corners of the globe to "meet" in a 3-D "world" that looks, in many ways, like Earth.