Are virtual worlds (a.k.a. digital worlds) an inevitable consequence of digital literacies?
Here's a description of the common characteristics of virual worlds.
One of the more popular virtual worlds is Second Life.
We interact in a virtual world through our digital alter egos, called avatars.
Personally, I have not participated in a virtual world, though there appear to be interesting educational applications, including three-dimensional recreations of museum and gallery spaces, computer programming tutorials, virtual libraries, and meeting spaces for online university courses.
Has anyone had any experiences with this new technology?
--Al
2 comments:
Hi Al. Your main link to the general Virtual Worlds site is really interesting - one could spend a lot of time there. I did try Second Life a couple of years ago but I didn't get into it for some reason. My friend's husband - he's a very tech savvy guy - actually makes money by designing "objects" for Second Life that people buy for their avatars with real money - furniture, boats, stuff like that.
I'm sure that there will be more and more educational applications for these worlds. I see that The Sims Online is big - the Sims are a fun game - and one of my son's teachers used SimCity to do a really interesting urban planning unit for social studies, I think in seventh or eighth grade.
Of course, there's World of Warcraft...plenty to learn in that one.
Cheers, Anita
This is all new to me and I have just learned about it in the last year. Apparently, Pace University has bought some space in a virtual world. I'll try to get access for those of us who want to explore - I'm trying to figure out what the educational enhancements of this are. My instinct - and this is the Luddite coming out in me - is that I don't want kids checking into the virtual world, I want kids checking into the real world!
Post a Comment