The Development of a Virtual Farm for Applications in Elementary Science Education

The goal of this study is to develop a virtual farm for educational applications. Users can play the role of a farmer by planting vegetables and raising poultry on the virtual farm to observe their growth through online learning activities. The virtual farm possesses educational and entertaining fun...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:International journal of distance education technologies 2012-04, Vol.10 (2), p.1-16
Main Authors: Chang, Mei-Yu, Tarng, Wernhuar, Ou, Kuo-Liang, Yu, Kein-Fu, Hsieh, Kuen-Rong
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Achievement Tests
Agricultural Occupations
Agricultural Production
Agriculture
Comparative Analysis
Computer Simulation
Computer Software Evaluation
Control Groups
Distance Education
Distance learning
Education
Educational Experiments
Educational Technology
Electronic Learning
Elementary School Science
Experimental Groups
Farms
Foreign Countries
Grade 3
Instructional Design
Instructional Effectiveness
Instructional Materials
Interviews
Learning management systems
Material Development
Motivation
Multimedia Instruction
Observation
Quasiexperimental Design
Questionnaires
Science
Science Instruction
Simulated Environment
Taiwan
Virtual reality
Visual effects
Web Based Instruction
Web Sites
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The goal of this study is to develop a virtual farm for educational applications. Users can play the role of a farmer by planting vegetables and raising poultry on the virtual farm to observe their growth through online learning activities. The virtual farm possesses educational and entertaining functions, and it is designed by simulating the real situations of being a farmer to enhance users’ interest and motivation in learning agricultural knowledge. It also provides an alternative way for city people to experience interesting farm life. The virtual farm is highly interactive with 3D visual effects and the attractive features of distance learning, and thus it can be used as an assistant tool in elementary science education. A teaching experiment was conducted and the results showed that the virtual farm could enhance students’ learning effectiveness and motivation.
ISSN:1539-3100
1539-3119
DOI:10.4018/jdet.2012040101