The Use of Virtual Worlds for Developing Intercultural Competences

In this research, the authors present a framework for developing Intercultural Competence (IC) and use Tridimensional Digital Virtual Worlds (3DVW) as environments for developing Intercultural Competence. They developed an artifact, via Design Research, constituted by an educational method using the 3DVW Second Life® as the place for a virtual exchange program between 92 Brazilian and Portuguese master students. The results of the authors' study indicate that the 3DVW can be used for the development of IC because it allows rich experiential and relational/conversational learning opportunities, especially due to the affordances of immersion/sense of presence, social interaction, content production and knowledge sharing.