Deploying Virtual Worlds for Education in Real Schools

Between 2002 and 2008, we have developed and deployed four educational programs based on Multi-Users Virtual Environments (MUVEs): more than 9,000 students from Europe, USA and Israel took part in MUVEs based experiences in the context of formal education, i.e. at school, as part of a curricular activity and not as a "recreational experimentation" of technology (Figure 1). The different programs had a similar pattern, with a technology and an architecture that evolved over the years.