224 Using Virtual Learning Communities for Research in Technical Writing Reneta D. Lansiquot New York City College of Technology of the City University of New York, USA Making the Virtual Real: Chapter 12 ABSTRACT The emerging critical global collaboration paradigm and the use of virtual learning communities can form structured domains that require complementary methods for educational research. The purpose of this chapter is to illustrate how the social nature of virtual worlds can be used to teach technical writing and the academic research process. A yearlong, mixed methodology, research study is used to demon- strate the effect of this blended learning pedagogical approach on writing apprehension in advanced technical writing courses. Students wrote manuals collaboratively for an audience of their peers. Second Life, the online 3D virtual world created entirely by its residents, was both their subject of study and a mode of meaningful communication. INTRODUCTION Globalization has triggered and is accelerating the disappearance of the competition paradigm so that the key issue is no longer whether students can compete with their global counterparts, but whether they can work with them (Suárez-Orozco & Qin-Hilliard, 2004). For instance, technical communication courses that are inherently inter- disciplinary (i.e., merging writing with science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) pro- DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60960-040-2.ch012 mote the use of computer-supported collaborative learning and now extend beyond such Web 2.0 technologies as blogs (see Lansiquot, Rosalia, & Howell, 2009) to include 3D virtual worlds, no- tably Second Life. Furthermore, newly emerging mapping applications will soon expand this virtual space. (This model has been termed Second Earth [Roush, 2007].) Such virtual communities provide alternate spaces for real discussions and overcome geographic limitations. In virtual worlds, interac- tion is more explicit and uses gesture rather than needing to rely on purely text-based interactions because students can actually see virtual avatars of Copyright © 2011, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.