Constructing a 3D Virtual World for Traditional Culture Education

This study introduces the pedagogically effective learning model for traditional culture education based on a 3D virtual application newly developed by a cultural transmitting company in China, in hopes of exploring the great potential to integrate virtual worlds into Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL). The inspiration comes from research results on successful application of edutainment technology in education and on the opportunity offered by cutting-edge technologies. The resulting 3D virtual world cannot only create a graphic, vivid immersive context for students to learn traditional culture, but also offer teachers a better management tool to keep students motivated in creative thinking and highly-cooperative group work. In the paper, we describe in depth the theoretical rationale behind the pedagogically effective learning model for traditionally classroom-based culture education, with particular attention to the design of the 3D virtual application. Furthermore, the paper discusses the challenges we face as well, so as to provide a clear idea about the issue and the direction for more efforts in future work.