Abstract:

In this paper we try to find some answers and solutions for the challenging of virtual world and virtual environment form the educational aspects. We cover how virtual realities seemingly improve the social behaviour of children, and how those avatar worlds should improve it actually. It is a well-known fact, that utilizing avatars can be beneficial to human behaviour. So why couldn't we educate the future generations with such, familiar methods? Is it necessary to insist on heroes of old tales, or can we open up to modern tales for models boldly but carefully? We try to give an answer of the brand new world challenges in children education from the aspect of social behaviour. Sometimes our children cannot find a border between of real life and virtual life. Educators really do not agree what are real problem in virtual world and what are exaggerated fears. With the help of Internet and the new games possibilities our student can easily learn many things, and also can spend all day in front of theirs computer. In our practice we establish some new method in children’s psychodrama. We organized a research group dealing with the problems of virtual reality. Currently our team consists of three permanent leaders and other experts. Two of our leaders are the lecturers of the Knowledge and Technology Department at the Eszterházy Károly College. Senior lecturer Roland Király is involved in the informatics teacher’s training and associate professor Dr. Emőd Kovács, who is the leader expert on training. http://matinf.ektf.hu The third person is Dr. Márta Antal child psychiatrist, who is one of the leaders of Institute of Mental Hygiene in Eger. http://www.mentalcsoport.hu

Main activities:
Dealing with children in a therapy group: on the one hand, correction of behavioural problems and on the other hand providing the therapy groups with information on the effects of the virtual world and computer games and also their safe use. The groups included 20 meetings. Organizing thematic trainings: beyond the limits of children’s drama group we organize thematic trainings on the safe use of internet and virtual environment. We have organized workshops to integrate the college students at the Teacher Training Department thereby we will be able to broaden the participants of the group. Our further plan includes the integration of preventive methods connected to the virtual environment and the early detection of health, mental and social issues/problems. Two ways seem to be working currently. One of them is the training of our colleagues who have long been teaching, and the other is the preparation of the students within the framework of a new subject that is to be developed. Our results and plans have raised the interest of the Environmental Sub-Program of the Doctoral School of Education as well.

References:
[1] Cole, M. and Cole S. R. (1996): The Development of Children, W. H. Freeman and Company, New York
[2] Fisch, K., McLeod, S. (2012) :Did You Know?/Shift Happens, http://shifthappens.wikispaces.com
[3] E. Kovács, M. Antal (2012) CHALLENGES OF VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENT IN EDUCATION, EDULEARN12 Proceedings, pp. 2109-2117.
[4] Kende B. Hanna (2000): Children's psychodrama (Hungarian), Osiris Press, Budapest

Keywords:

Virtual World in Education, Teacher Traning, Workshop, Children Social behaviour, Children's psychodrama.