3D Worlds to Learn and Play: 6 Years of Projects with an Engaging, Pedagogically Effective, and Versatile Educational Format

Abstract. This paper describes the evolution of the format for educational experiences based on 3D collaborative worlds developed by the Hypermedia Open Center of Politecnico di Milano. Evaluation data collected over 6 years with approximately 9,000 users aged 12 to 22 from 20 countries consistently show all the 4 experiences to be extremely engaging, educationally effective (providing a wide range of educational benefits) and highly versatile: the format was successfully adapted to different kinds of content, for a variety of age ranges, in very different geographical and cultural areas (18 European countries, Israel, and USA) and situations (during school hours, after school, and in sports associations). We discuss some of the educational format’s main strengths: a well-structured sequence of activities, combining collaboration and competition, online and offline activities, synchronous and asynchronous interaction, games and cultural challenges, high quality contents, and especially cross-cultural interaction among groups with different perspectives to share. Constant monitoring, evaluation and incremental adjustment ensure increasing quality, in a Design-Based Research approach. In the end we describe the challenges that an effective ICTbasededucational experience still has to face for adoption in schools.