Kehk Bee Lian

With the emergence of 3D virtual environments like Second-Life providing new avenues in education, expression and interaction, it begs to question the effectiveness of learning in such environments for its relevance and meaning to the user. Much research has propounded the advantages of technology in learning. In our previous study with a group of trainee teachers in digital 3-Dimensional Art-making, we found that virtual environments like Second-Life surpasses the physical limitations one usually associates with a traditional ‘real world’ art studio. Virtual environments open up possibilities in art making. For instance, students can defy natural laws of physics and gravity as well as have little constraint on scale and space. Most importantly, among the Millennial Generation (Strauss & Howe, 1991) the 3D virtual environment is fast becoming the defacto paradigm through which they learn, see and experience things like knowledge, pleasure and entertainment. In the wake of constructivism and problem-based learning (PBL), many educators are re-looking at traditional approaches to learning and training. In such an environment, we would like to question the following: 1. Can learning of concepts and principles of image-making take place in a 3D multi-user virtual environment (MUVE) using PBL and constructivist approach? 2. Will there be transference of learning to real-life context? Our study shows that 3D MUVE provides opportunities for art learning. Although the aspects of transference are difficult to quantify, active knowledge construction was present and the trainee teachers had shown through their works that their acquired knowledge was more than what was anticipated.