Online virtual worlds are common today, from role-playing gaming worlds such as World of Warcraft, to social worlds such as Second Life, and simulation marketing worlds like Stardoll.Virtual worlds create place and space that include cooperation over borders between users.This essay presents a brief outline of how place and space can be conceptualized in relation to virtual worlds.An understanding for how place and space function in relation to virtual worlds accounts for a shared sense of participation between people who engage with them.It shows that virtual worlds make it possible to cross borders between ages, nations, classes and bodies.To provide examples of such transversals this essay refers to machinima, the creation of video using virtual worlds, and a number of creative projects involving virtual worlds.In each example machinima is a way of 'reporting back' from the spaces and places of virtual worlds, allowing people to document the activities and experiences in virtual worlds as well as providing a powerful tool for creative and rhetorical narratives.In raising questions regarding presence and participation, virtual worlds expand our understanding of place and space today.

Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley (1818) is the starting point for this reading of remix in relation to authorship and its implications for creative work. The monster in Frankenstein has no single author, or father, and is damned by his mixed parentage as much as by his inability to recreate himself. Alone, he falls into the waste as a product of the divide between poetry and science. The ‘two cultures’ coined by C. P. Snow (1956) address this same divide and lament its dominance in mid twentieth-century intellectual life. But contemporary remix culture that relies on digital media closes this gap as poets now write code and artists are technicians. In my close reading of five remixes I show that origin is no longer relevant in the mixed material realization of processes that are performed or ‘re-authored’ in reception. In these remixes the creator reinterprets by changing the context of remixed elements in the works. The result is textual hybrids that are remixed further in reception.

The narrative traditions of the Aboriginal Australians have the potential to contribute to the understanding and development of participatory and spatially defined narrative systems such as those found in virtual worlds. The relevance of Aboriginal narrative systems is based on the participatory first-person perspective often found in virtual worlds where embodied agents interact with places and spaces. The representation of place and space are powerful elements in narrative (Bal, 1997; Casey, 1993; Ryan, 2011). Virtual online worlds, or ‘three-dimensional augmented reality interfaces which are becoming an increasingly prominent feature of twenty-first century computing’ (Wankel and Malleck, 2010, pp. 1–2), include space and place in the creation of narratives. Likewise, the narrative systems of the Australian Aborigines that are collectively referred to as the Dreamtime are extremely developed and complex multimedia networks that rely on place and space. In both virtual worlds and the Dreamtime, performance and participation are part of the creation of narratives. In each, individual contributions to narrative creation are based on participation. In a transcultural examination of narrative, we can re purpose vocabularies for what are often described as new media narratives of the digital age according to older multimedia, performative, and participatory modes. Appropriate strategies can be developed for authoring narratives using virtual worlds, and more compelling and inclusive environments can become a reality.

The chapter, based on a set of developed teaching scenarios, discusses how virtual worlds, in particular Second Life, can be used in student centered pedagogy; intertwining theory and practice, emphasizing process-thinking, critical perspectives, and strengthen the confidence and independence of the student. Drawing upon experiences from traditional education, Web 2.0-tools, and problem based pedagogy grounded in project work, social media, engineering, and digital humanities, this chapter presents a pedagogy based upon the concepts of participatory culture, and co-creation on the part of students in the learning process. The authors have been involved in developing the core curriculum for a term-long (four month) course for Museum Studies. A problem based, student centered pedagogy is both integrated and contrasted with traditional classroom settings, that are also part of the planning, implementation, and assessment stages of the course. Based upon the practical experience of conducting this course, the article critically discusses ICT and problem oriented learning on a general level - including the benefits and disadvantages for the student and for the teachers. How this approach to learning, from the experiences in virtual worlds, can fit in to the established structure of learning goals, lectures, examination, and assessment is questioned in the chapter, based on the experiences gathered from teaching the course.

The chapter, based on a set of developed teaching scenarios, discusses how virtual worlds, in particular Second Life, can be used in student centered pedagogy; intertwining theory and practice, emphasizing process-thinking, critical perspectives, and strengthen the confidence and independence of the student. Drawing upon experiences from traditional education, Web 2.0-tools, and problem based pedagogy grounded in project work, social media, engineering, and digital humanities, this chapter presents a pedagogy based upon the concepts of participatory culture, and co-creation on the part of students in the learning process. The authors have been involved in developing the core curriculum for a term-long (four month) course for Museum Studies. A problem based, student centered pedagogy is both integrated and contrasted with traditional classroom settings, that are also part of the planning, implementation, and assessment stages of the course. Based upon the practical experience of conducting this course, the article critically discusses ICT and problem oriented learning on a general level – including the benefits and disadvantages for the student and for the teachers. How this approach to learning, from the experiences in virtual worlds, can fit in to the established structure of learning goals, lectures, examination, and assessment is questioned in the chapter, based on the experiences gathered from teaching the course.

This paper discusses three examples of rhetorical holiness from the online virtual world of Second Life. The rhetorical holiness is compared to the representation of beliefs and practices in physical settings. By examining representation of the holy in Second Life it is possible to discuss the shift from older to new media forms in established and therefore comparative contexts. How these movements reflect and affect practices and beliefs is argued as highlighting networks of power and meaning.

This paper discusses the possibilities for the creative use of virtual worlds as tools for learning. Initially it describes the starting points and motivations for this work. It goes on to report t ...

I approach digital media via brief examinations of spatial and narrative discourse networks not often associated with the digital. This approach is meant to suggest that digital media is a product and a producer of a dynamic realignment of cultural assumptions globally, such as what is considered to be 'narrative'. The cultural fields I discuss in relation to digital media are the performance of pilgrimage and some of the story telling systems of the Australian Aboriginal nations. In relation to pilgrimage the 9th century Buddhist stupa of Borobudur on the Indonesian island of Java is examined as an example of a spatial hypermediation that immerses the pilgrim in a story manifest through interactions. The Aboriginal story systems examined move across media forms (spoken word, song, body paint, sculpture, bark painting) to present a participatory narrative grounded in culturally specific understandings of space and place.My use of the term 'digital' refers to media systems that rely on digital technologies. The major features of digital technologies relevant here is the effectiveness of the technology at constructing spatial relations in representations and the demand of the direct participation of the users as co-creators of what is represented.