Comments on: Sims, Games, and Virtual Worlds

By: Patrick Bultema

Patrick Bultema — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 13:25:45 +0000

We are definitely seeing interesting examples of virtual world type contexts. So more fully 3D VR like what W/ is doing. Others are using various innovations. For instance, Wendy Phillip at BigPond in Australia created a animated comic book format. Won a LearnX Award just a couple months ago.

By: interesting bits « Virtual Worlds, Video Games & Gamers

interesting bits « Virtual Worlds, Video Games & Gamers — Mon, 11 May 2009 16:35:32 +0000

[…] to leave Second Life off a well-rounded, integrated social media marketing plan….” Sims, Games, and Virtual Worlds “Would someone explain diff between sims (often used well for ed) and […]

By: Clark

Clark — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 20:29:23 +0000

Amy, hadn't seen RezEd, thanks for the pointer. And happy for you to either link or copy posts to ShapingYouth (you're doing good work!). If you're doing design of gaming-embedded learning, virtual world or not, I'd be happy to see if I can assist. Yes, you can definitely embed scenarios into VWs, and thanks for pointers to these instances. I agree that we can seriously impact learners (cf transformative design), but it may be that other game formats besides VWs provide better cost/benefit equations, and there will be times that VWs are better, because of the social nature, a significant proportion is already there, or, yes, 3D. Thanks for the contribution!

By: Shaping Youth

Shaping Youth — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 00:53:42 +0000

Clark, are you posting some of these learnlets on RezEd.org? Would like to invite you to crosspost on Shaping Youth as well…(the new #lrnchat format looks like it could serve you nicely for RT feedback, tho I won’t give up the long form blog, as cumbersome as it is!) ;-)

We’re about to pilot some work on ‘virtual nutrition’ within the Elf Island ‘GoodQuests’ (mirrored gaming-3D kids’ learning/empowerment for tweens) and you’re right about the learning curve…I’ve logged in a few kids to just ‘play’ and ‘get used’ to the world before the activity and scenarios begin, and I’ll admit the barrier of entry is a bit of a concern. My biggest worry is that the ramp up time for our control group to get to a comfort zone reduces the learning time of our first round of 30 day informal assessments, as the VW itself is rather sophisticated, even for this young age.

Most of my VW experiences w/learning have had to do with kids worlds (I like the Why Reef going on in Whyville right now, and the Dizzywood quests and Elf Island ‘secrets’) but I think you bring up some really good terminology issues that MUST be clarified in the bigger scheme of things too re: VW vs. sim semantics.

Just to further confuse the issue there are highly sophisticated role play ‘sims WITHIN VWs’ like Gor/Fina in SL based on the John Norman book adaptations and ‘pirate sims’ in SL and all kinds of other role play variations of psychosocial exploration which I suppose is ‘learning’ of a different kind. But in general, I think your assessment of learning curve barriers is spot on in the more sophisticated VW worlds.

Some of the sims will ultimately take students to places they may never ‘go’ otherwise, and in others their reasoning and critical thinking acquired could engage in fresh new ways beyond the ‘what ifs’ of a talking head teacher. But I agree with you, there MUST be a ‘reason’ for 3D VW or sims inherently superior to an easier method that engages fully and effectively. (e.g. like the NCLI Act where kids can learn about nature (and math, physics, science, poetry, eco-literacy!) outdoors and unplugged. ;-)

Gotta keep up with you more, we’re walking along similar paths…ttys, Amy