Journal #6: Virtual Worlds

Second Life? Post by Lucy Gray

A virtual world is a computer-simulated environment where users can “interact, play, learn, do business and communicate in an online environment.” This means that users create avatars, or virtual representations of themselves, and then interact with each other through everything from text and graphical icons to visual gesture and sound. The most common forum for virtual worlds are MMOPG’s (or massively multiplayer online role playing games.)

Virtual worlds are also growing as an educational tool. In the discussion board on Classroom 2.0 one of the users mentioned how she uses Second Life () in a variety of ways; like to hold office hours for the college students in her online class and to meet fellow educators from around the country and the world. These virtual worlds can also be used to create museums where students can explore the Louvre from thousands of miles away or teachers can set up their own aerospace and science museums. Another example of the global applications of this technology is the project being done in the Modesto School District. One of the users discusses how students who are studying Japanese are collaborating with Japanese students who are studying English to set up a virtual community.

One of the teachers also talked about how he had used a virtual setting to create a 3-D model of an eyeball with labeled and interactive parts that the students could explore. This teacher also had a number of interesting ideas of what could be done with virtual spaces including building a virtual Peaquod and haveing the students “go in search of Moby Dick” or build an internal combustion engine to “demonstrate how the parts of it work so they can get up close and personal to see it actually in motion without being burned.” These are just a few of the amazing ideas of what can and is being done with this new technology.

Related links:
http://sleducation.wikispaces.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_world