The Human-Computer Interaction Group here at Cornell has found Activity Theory a useful paradigm for understanding how technology mediates experience. Within such a framework, how a person learns in an environment such as AW is shaped by the technology as it is used to achieve particular learning objectives within particular social contexts. Learning through Active Worlds entails of number of simultaneously occurring activities that can all impact upon the actual learning experience and the realization of learning objectives, e.g.,
Facility and ease in navigating and interacting in the learning environment will vary with amount of time spent in-world and one’s level of comfort with the types of communication and interaction that are established. It will also vary with the content and form of learning that has motivated the creation of the space—that is, to manipulate and experiment with objects, to collaboratively construct and explore, or to reflect and analyze. Moreover, the design and decor of learning spaces, and the engagements with artifacts and others that they enable or hinder, will shape levels of comfort and types of engagement.
It is important that the design of the environment "fit" the learning objectives and content. In the use and design of learning experiences, educators must reflect upon how the embodied dimension of the experience contributes to learning, understood as either the transformation of worldviews or as the acquisition of information. The potential of this medium lies in its ability to foster multiple types of learning, not just cognitive-- experiential, intuitive, embodied, aesthetic, etc.--through the virtual embodied engagement with a world of virtual objects and landscapes.