Pre-service teachers designing virtual world learning environments

Integrating Information Technology Communications in the classroom has been an important part of pre-service teacher education for over a decade. The advent of virtual worlds provides the pre-service teacher with an opportunity to study teaching and learning in a highly immersive 3D computer based environment. Virtual worlds also provide a place in which pre-service teachers can design teaching and learning environments for their future students. The virtual world teaching and learning environments that pre-service teachers design can, in turn, inform established educators about how virtual world spaces can be well designed and contribute to research in the field of education in virtual worlds. The voice of one pre-service teacher and her tutor is presented as they discuss the design of a virtual world maths teaching and learning environment.