3D Virtual Worlds as Creative Pedagogy for Art Education

As 3D Virtual Worlds (VWs) have become an ongoing trend in education, their potential application in art education needs to be demystified. The author reviews the literature on 3D VWs for education and art education that highlights their unique characteristics and related issues and reveals the learning opportunities for engaging students. Next, the author presents her virtual world curriculum and pedagogy as well as students' work examples and their responses to the new art and learning media from her Art Café@Second Life research project. At the end, she makes recommendations for future research that examines the 3D VW as a creative learning/teaching environment, art form/medium, and exhibition/creation ground, and an emerging curricular topic for inquiry.