Monday, June 29, 2009

3D-DGBL and Instructional Simulations for the Humanities

Three dimensional digital game-based learning (3D-DGBL) environments and instructional simulations provide several advantages for the teaching of the humanities and foreign languages, including the ability to foster constructivist learning environments and provide personally-tailored and highly motivational instruction; the promotion of student-directed learning, free inquiry, and exploration; and the power to emulate remote or inaccessible real-world environments, recreate vanished environments, and lend substance to purely imaginary or literary ones.

The Cathedral from Sebastian König on Vimeo

The above video, completely modeled and rendered in Blender, is a virtual recreation of the cathedral of Halle an der Saale as it might have appeared in 1526. Although not an interactive instructional simulation due to the large amount of processing overhead required for image rendering, the video is interesting in that it hints at the possibilities that 3D-DGBL can offer the humanities. What about, say, an educational simulation of a medieval cloister or a game that allows a student to assume the role of a nun at this cloister?

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