Designing Learning Activities With Cross-National Collaborators Through a Virtual World in Higher Education

• In Event: AERA Poster Session 4
  In Poster Session: Emerging Avenues for Research in Online Learning

Abstract

This study is focused on understanding the perceptions of designing learning activities by graduate students who participated in computer-supported collaborative learning/online environment for teaching and learning courses in the United States and Israel. The students met weekly between November and December 2018 and collaborated within a virtual world, Second Life (SL), in developing collaborative learning activities. Following the course, interviews were conducted with a small sample of the student-participants regarding their collaboration and learning experience. The findings indicate that this activity provided an authentic learning experience for the interviewed students and there was genuine excitement in that they could collaborate in real-time with colleagues on the opposite side of the world. However, some challenges in this collaboration were also revealed.

Authors

• Songhee Han, The University of Texas at Austin

• Paul E. Resta, The University of Texas at Austin