Virtual worlds to enhance student engagement

Both the School of Education and the discipline of Criminology at Deakin University have been using the 3-dimensional environment Second Life to deliver curriculum content and to engage students with each other and with teaching staff. The nature of this platform is facilitating more proactive student engagement with technology, including increased student competence in sharing artwork, problem solving and general discussion of complex criminological issues. In this paper, we provide some examples of how we are using Second Life in our curriculum offerings in Education and Criminology as a tool to promote greater engagement, particularly for students undertaking their courses by distance. We outine how the immersive nature of this platform can enhance the level of student interaction to produce a deeper form of engagement with our Unit material than is possible through conventional text and web-based document repositories.