ABSTRACT
With the increasing use of technology across home, work and school most people are tethered to some form of digital device. Across the media there has been considerable criticism about students, and children’s use of mobile devices, along with plentiful anecdotes across education about students being continually distracted by technology. The debates about learning and teaching, pedagogy and andragogy have been on the agenda for many years. There is increasing focus in the twenty–first century on what and how students learn, and on ways of creating learning environments to ensure that they learn effectively – although much of this remains contested ground. The research and the integration of pedagogical agents into educational settings suggest an increase in the value of pedagogical agents and the ways in which they might be adopted and adapted for teaching and learning. Virtual worlds are computer–based simulated 3D environments, which users navigate using an avatar and can therefore meet other avatars in–world.
