Realization of 3D Virtual World Platform for the Basic Education of Adult Illiterates

Illiteracy is a dilemma, around more than 700 million adults in the world are illiterate. Along with the traditional approaches, technology has been used for last three decades for literacy programs. These techno-literacy solutions exploited two-dimensional (2D) spaces with multimodal interfaces to augment learning for illiterates. These multimodal interfaces offer audio and visual features, recommended in learning theories. However many other features such as self-presence, social-presence, situated-learning, embodied environment etc suggested in these learning theories are yet to be included in these techno-literacy solutions to further their learning. In present era, emerging three-dimensional (3D) Virtual Worlds (VW) have potential to provide these lacking features and many others. These 3D VWs have already proved their importance in other disciplines such as higher education and business; however never been investigated for Adult Basic Education (ABE). In this paper, we explore how the benefits of 3D emergent technologies like Second Life (SL) are exploited in coherence with traditional theories for ABE. We present an immersive learning platform based on Multiple Intelligences (MI) Theory. We design and discuss an adaptive learning scenario for ABE in the SL. Finally we scrutinize the proposed platform to get an overview of the strengths and weaknesses in the intended area of application.