The affordances of virtual worlds as authentic, culturally diverse learning environments

The history of the application of technologies to support learning and teaching long predates the emergence of virtual worlds as immersive platforms for engaging students in authentic, culturally diverse experiential learning activities. Yet the all too familiar pattern of technological adoption described in Gartner’s Hype Cycle (2017) has persisted, with an initial trigger (often accompanied by a level of ambivalence) followed by the peak of inflated expectations, the trough of disillusionment, the slope of enlightenment and then the plateau of productivity. It is at this ‘plateau of productivity’ stage of the hype cycle that, in Midani’s words, comes the ‘dawning of irreversible change’ (Midani 1986, cited in Marcus 1996, p. 273), as educators engage in emerging research, experiment with innovative applications of virtual worlds to support learning and teaching, and begin to appreciate the affordances that the technology offers to engage their students.