Learn About Virtual Worlds

Reproduced here with thanks to elearn.mag, (some minor additional edits made by Brightfield to aid clarity).

What do people do in Virtual Worlds?
First, let's go on record by stating the obvious: Virtual Worlds (VWs) will not replace other forms of learning. Instead, we believe the thoughtful application of VW technology will significantly enhance the experience and transfer of learning. We encourage you to examine this technology with fresh eyes and begin by asking what sensibilities it can bring to the learner that aren't found in traditional learning technology. So instead of asking "How do I build a virtual classroom?" we might ask, "What can this technology do that will enhance the learner's experience that my current learning technology portfolio cannot?"

Here are the VW sensibilities we have identified so far:

• The Sense of Self. First, a bit of terminology. Your virtual self is called an avatar. Your avatar is your persona, totally under your control. As opposed to games or simulations where people have limited freedom to set their own course, your avatar can walk (or fly) wherever he or she chooses. This occurs in real time: Click to fly and your avatar is aloft. More importantly, the more you hang out in VWs the more you and your avatar become one. In short, you are your avatar when in a VW, and your emotional attachment to that avatar will surprise you!

   

• The Death of Distance. Avatars reside in a boundless virtual landscape in which they can teleport through cyberspace from one place to another at the speed of light. There is no distance in VWs. Think of yourself as Einstein did when he formulated the theory of relativity. You are sitting on a beam of light, and you can go from one place to the next in an instant. SecondLife's landscape is home to stores, businesses, shops, houses, office buildings, campuses, and playing fields, all constructed by residents themselves, thousands of entrepreneurs who design and build with great skills, or by the more than 60 firms offering a range of professional services. The landscape in a VW is persistent; cut off your computer and the VW will be there when you return. It's like SimCity except that it's SimContinent or SimPlanet. Other VWs come with more structure: ProtoSphere (ProtonMedia's virtual environment) comes with pre-built classrooms, lecture halls, and meeting spaces.

   

• The Power of Presence, Sense of Space, and Capacity to Co-Create. Avatars interact with one another through the actions of their real-life puppet-masters. Avatars converse, collaborate, attend book signings, concerts and meetings, listen to presentations, explore, co-construct virtual buildings or sculptures, write in wikis, and play baseball or tringo (a popular in-world game that will be soon available on cell-phones and launched as a TV game show by the BBC). VWs encourage social groups to form. Unimaginable? Stanford researcher Clifford Nass has discovered that people often treat computers as they would other people. They like a computer that praises them. If humans treat beige boxes as kin, surely they can identify with animated humanoids in a VW.

   

• The Pervasiveness of Practice. Walk around Second Life for a while and you'll come to the conclusion that it's not only a virtual social world, but a world that fosters a culture of collaborative learning. Sandboxes abound where slightly more experienced Second Lifers share what they know with others. In every corner you see chat interactions that start with the wonderful learning question "How do I…?" Stop and look around. You will come to realize that this is an emotive network where all the cultural attributes of peer-to-peer creation and learning are present, but in a way that renders it logical for us as human beings. Those who bang bits for a living may think Usenet or Linux development in 3D; those from the Web 2.0 generation may think MySpace plus eBay in 3D; and members of the wiki movement may envision Wikipedia becoming Wikitechture, with avatars co-creating things in 3D space and learning all along the way.

   

• The Enrichment of Experience. Another sensibility VWs provide is the enrichment of experience. In saying this we don't just mean that VWs are better than Centra or Interwise. We are saying that is possible to have experiences in these spaces that are not possible in the real world. VWs provide the ability to exist in an augmented reality. Maybe you are confined to a wheelchair and suddenly you can dance the night away, or perhaps you want to interact with your design colleagues around the world to check out a virtual prototype of a car, a chip layout, a battlefield situation, or a caffeine molecule. This platform enables people to experience life in new and engaging ways.