virtual+worlds

=Tool/technology title=

Author(s): Khalida Sabi and previous authors

1. Definition
A virtual world __are online communities__ that take the form of a __computer simulated environment__, where users can interact with each other, use and create objects. They are intended for users to inhabit and interact. Avatars are usually depicted as textual, two dimansional, or 3D graphical representations, although various other forms are available. in a nutshell, Virtual worlds are "imaginary" worlds created by a computer or a network of computers that can be used by multiple users. Motionable avatars( added value of teaching in a virtual world) and graphical images are created to represent people and are put into an environment where the users can interact. virtual worlds provide an opportunity to study human nature outside the bounds of reality. this make studying more interesting and more applicable.

The computer accesses a simulated world and presents perceptual stimuli to the other user, who in term can manipulate elements of the modeled world and thus experiences telepresense to a certain degree. Such worlds may appear similar to the real world or instead depict fantasy worlds. This modeled world may simulate rules based on the real world or some hybrid fantasy world. Example rules are gravity, topography, locomotion, real-time actions and communication. Communication between users has ranged from text, graphical icons, visual gestures, sound and forms using touch, voice and balance senses.

Big multiplayer online games often depict a world very similar to the real world, with all the rules of real life, real-time actions, and communication. Players create a character to travel between buildings, towns, and even worlds to carry out business or leisure activities. Communication is often text based with real time voice communication using voip.

Virtual worlds are not always limited to games, but depending on the the degree of intimacy, can encompass computer conferencing and text based chatrooms. Sometime they include emoticons or smilies are available, to show feelings or facial expressions. Emoticons have keyboard shortcuts.

2. Examples of products (open source/free or commercial)
Second life, active worlds, Coke Studios Cybertown Disney's Toontown Dreamville Dubit Habbo Hotel The Manor Mokitown Moove Muse The Palace Playdo Second Life The Sims Online Sora City There <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;">TowerChat <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;">Traveler <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;">Virtual Ibiza <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;">Virtual Magic Kingdom <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;">Voodoo Chat <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;">VPchat <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;">VZones <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;">whyrobbierocks <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;">Whyville <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;">Worlds.com <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;">Yohoho! Puzzle <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;">Pirates

3. Examples of applications for Teaching and Learning
<span style="color: #333333; font: 12px Arial,helvetica,sans-serif; margin: 2px auto 15px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">The "7 Things You Should Know About..." series from the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) provides concise information on emerging learning practices and technologies. Each brief focuses on a single practice or technology and describes what it is, where it is going, and why it matters to teaching and learning. Use "7 Things You Should Know About..." briefs for a no-jargon, quick overview of a topic and share them with time-pressed colleagues. <span style="color: #333333; font: 12px Arial,helvetica,sans-serif; margin: 2px auto 15px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">In addition to the "7 Things You Should Know About…" briefs, you may find other ELI resources useful in addressing teaching, learning, and technology issues at your institution. To learn more, please visit the <span style="color: #990000; cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">[|ELI Resources page].

<span style="color: #333333; font: 12px Arial,helvetica,sans-serif; margin: 2px auto 15px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">In my opinion By <span style="color: #0066a0; cursor: pointer; display: block; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Stefanie Olsen , Staff Writer, CNET News.com, Published: June 12, 2006 4:00 AM PD sums up education in a virtual world perfectly and I attach her article for you to read.

<span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">This summer, as many as a million virtual kids could catch an infectious virus known as Whypox, causing them to break out in red welts and spout "Achoo" whenever chatting with friends. <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">Meanwhile, at the beach, crowds of "tweens," 8- to 12-year-olds, will see their popular hangout beset with so-called red tides, as the seashore changes from blue to red with phytoplankton blossoms. <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">Are these two signs of a crumbling world? No, they're learning tools for Whyvillains, the residents of an <span style="color: #0066a0; cursor: pointer; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">[|online virtual world] whose population of kids has grown to about 1.6 million since its inception in 1999. Children in Whyville earn "clams" through activities and games, and use that virtual money to buy face decorations for their otherwise plain avatars. Then, they typically socialize with peers via chat, bulletin boards and the city's mail system. <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">"When Whypox first hits, they start saying 'Achoo,' and it interferes with their chat, which is obviously very important. So they are interested in finding out what it is and what they can do about it," in Whyville's Center for Disease Control, said Cathleen Galas, a teacher who helped a class of sixth graders through a bout of the pox last year by instructing them about epidemiology, the study of infectious diseases. <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">In educational circles, Whyville's private universe is known as a multiuser virtual environment, or MUVE, a genre of software games created to inspire <span style="color: #0066a0; cursor: pointer; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">[|children] to learn about math and science, among other subjects. Unlike most game software and social networks, which elicit negative associations for some parents and teachers, MUVEs are structured environments with rules for behavior, yet no pat formula for action. Designed to provide problems to solve that don't involve slaying monsters, MUVEs compel kids to figure out the issues to succeed in the environments or have time to socialize. <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">Learning-based virtual worlds are growing more popular in schools and among children, thanks to ongoing efforts by universities and private companies. <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">For example, Harvard University's "River City" is a MUVE that involves a society in the late 1800s that's in political and environmental disrepair--kids must figure out why residents are falling ill. Harvard's School of Education is in talks with several urban school districts to introduce the software to tens of thousands of schoolchildren this fall. <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">Quest Atlantis, a downloadable MUVE developed at Indiana University that focuses on an ancient culture, will be introduced to 50 new classrooms, or between 10,000 to 20,000 students, in New Jersey next fall, according to Indiana Associate Professor Sasha Barab, who specializes in learning sciences and instructional systems technology. <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">Privately held companies like Pasadena, Calif., Numedeon, makers of Whyville, are also finding it easier to lure new sponsors. In the next month, Toyota Financial Services will host a Whyville loan center to help kids learn about FICO scores and interest rates in order to borrow money to buy a virtual Toyota Scion to drive around the world, according to the site's co-founder and president, Jennifer Sun. (Driving a Scion became a popular activity when the cars were introduced in Whyville in April.) <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">Wider adoption of MUVEs raises the question: Are virtual worlds the future of learning for the wired generation? <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">Ask some educators and they'll tell you yes. That's because research has shown that kids engage deeply in virtual environments, gaining a conceptual and ethical understanding of school subjects, according to education experts. And many kids are already comfortable socializing online, so educationally oriented virtual worlds can offer that same sort of stimulus and use that potential to aid learning. There's one big caveat, however: Virtual worlds must have knowledgeable and motivated teachers driving the train. <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">Chris Dede, Harvard professor and creator of "River City," has researched the effects of MUVEs in schools for the last six years. "Based on our results thus far, we're excited about how MUVEs can provide immersive, engaging simulations that complement lectures, textbooks, labs and field trips as part of an effective science curriculum," Dede says in a video promoting the project. <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">"As a (teaching) supplement, this is the wave of the future," said Numedeon's Sun. <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">Still, proponents have an uphill battle when it comes to dispelling negative preconceptions of video games and socially oriented computing environments. They say many people automatically fear that games can't teach kids anything valuable, or worse, that they're a waste of time. With the rise of MySpace, <span style="color: #0066a0; cursor: pointer; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">[|many parents] are also worried that kids aren't safe against predators in digital communities. <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">"One of the things for us is how do we deal in this fearful culture?" said Barab. "Do classrooms want to innovate and make it educational and entertaining?" He added that there's also some tension around how educators enlist kids in a fantasy world so that it has real world value. <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">In regard to teaching an inner-city kid about Rome and its ancient art, politics and society, for example, a virtual world can spark the child's imagination more than a textbook filled with beautiful pictures can, Gallas said. Virtual environments, ironically, offer the feeling of reality. <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">'River' rafting Harvard professor Chris Deede developed "River City" nearly six years ago, seeking to answer two simple research questions: Can kids learn from this type of virtual interface? And if so, how much can they learn? He answered these questions by evaluating use of the MUVE in schools around the greater Boston area. <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">Kids in "River City" have avatars and can walk, run or swim through the city, which contains a polluted river and mosquito-ridden bogs. Students work in teams to investigate the virtual town, click on objects to interview subjects, and collectively form hypotheses about what's affecting the city and making people sick. Inside the city, they can also access library materials and other data sources--and each lesson is up to national standards for biology and history. Kids must also handle tasks like analyzing water samples at a virtual treatment plant. <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">"Instead of teaching slash-and-slay mentality, 'River City' teaches kids to be scientists through the technology," said Edward Dieterle, advanced doctoral candidate in learning and teaching at Harvard's Graduate School of Education. <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">In one example, kids who experienced "River City" found that people in densely populated tenements were much more likely to be stricken with the illness than wealthier people living farther apart. They sought to change variables in the city, such as adding more tenements, which the MUVE allows through administrators, but then one change set off a domino effect that didn't necessarily fix the city. The kids learned that because of the complexity of the world, it takes many changes to solve its problems. <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">"In ways, many adults don't understand this," said Gallas. 4. __the advantages and disadvanatges of teaching and learning in a virtual world__ <span style="display: block; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;"> 5. __how can virtual learning be used in teaching and learning?__
 * not applicable to overseas students who are not familiar with the cultural differences - disadvantage!
 * not applicable to 'traditional" lecturers who prefer the lecture room with handing out reading material etc.- disadvantage!
 * not applicable to the "older" generation as they do not know much about modern technology- disadvantage!
 * will be more entertaining to the students and will encourage them to particiapate more - HUGE advantage!
 * the persistance of a virtual world can allow for social interactions and can be a basis for collaborative education!- HUGE advantage!
 * virtual worlds give its users abilitys to carry out taks which would otherwise be difficult in the real world due to time contratints or money etc- HUGE advantage!
 * meet new users which can be difficult in a big class room - advantage
 * many fields of study can use virtual study. e,g, business, health, I.T, criminal justice, hospitaility managment, MBA studets etc - HUGE advantage!
 * it can be used to for problem solving, analyzing and applying information of the course content. learning activities such as role play, designing things such as houses etc, can be implemented.
 * students become part of the concepts being taught as they are immersed in the concept via sounnds, visuals and experince.
 * students are engaged in a higher level of cognative thinking via educational games and stimualtions in the virtual world.
 * these stimaultions promote many tools of learning such as interperting problems, analyzing problems, discovering and evaluating of problems, acting etc.
 * by interacting in a virtual world, the student learns concepts that he would not easily learn via a textbook or lecture.
 * virtual worlds can become extremely useful in distance learning as students interact in a set environment despite their physical locations.
 * [|www.secondlife.com] is the place to go to create a virtual world and get started.

6. Other resources (articles, guides, videos, examples...)
http://www.vwbpe.org/ http://horizonproject.wikispaces.com/Virtual+Worlds+-+Impact+on+Education http://www.educause.edu/Resources/VirtualWorldsinEducation/163285 http://ella.slis.indiana.edu/~sstoerge/virtualworlds.htm http://news.cnet.com/2009-1041_3-6081870.html http://www.virtualworldsreview.com/info/whatis.shtml http://news.cnet.com/2009-1041_3-6081870.html http://www.virtualworldsreview.com/info/whatis.shtml [] []

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