This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5)
This engineering education research award to Loyola Marymount University will employ researchers to create and assess an on-line interactive learning environment called the Virtual Engineering Sciences Learning Lab (VESLL). The resources of the popular Second Life fantasy world will be used to create a cyberlearning environment for engineering students with focus on both discipline specific content and interdisciplinary professional skills. The virtual learning environment will offer benefits of visualization and simulation capabilities, collaborative problem solving, access to remote resources, and immediate feedback to students. The assessments of VESLL will provide a valuable deeper understanding of how effective popular virtual environments can be as learning environments for engineering students. The use of virtual learning environments can increase interest in engineering and provide more resources to engineering students to better prepare them for engineering jobs.
