Wonderland 0.4 - Demo video

What to notice
It’s helpful to understand that Wonderland has been envisioned as a platform for working/collaboration across distance. It provides a more immersive experience than you could achieve with current available technologies such as video and phone conferencing, web-conferencing and chats.

Two things to consider in a virtual environment are its capacity to facilitate users achieving specific tasks alone and together and its effectiveness at compensating for the missing sensory and contextual information we take for granted when we’re face to face.

The first point is not difficult to address. We call it task analysis, which means you break down a task into small components (sub-tasks) in order to understand how to design learning it. It gets tricky when you must also consider sensory and contextual information needed. We easily recognize the barriers to learning created by a classroom with fixed seating, inadequate lighting or instructional equipment, the same holds true in a virtual environment. Most of use use classrooms, we don’t build them. And we may walk into a technologically sophisticated room like our Learning Research Studio and have to learn how to use it technically and pedagogically.

So lots of things to think about.

Watch this video and you’ll see how Wonderland developers are designing for accomplishing specific tasks as well as compensating for missing sensory and contextual information. For example, when an avatar is speaking his body gestures and his name title (above his head) pulsates. This facilitates verbal communication and compensates for some of the visual information we have when we talk to people face to face. What else?

Suzanne

What Exactly Is A Virtual World?

Pop quiz: What is a Virtual World?

a) A shared space
b) Avatar-based chat room
c) 3D collaborative experience
d) All of the above
e) Or something else?

With new Virtual Worlds being announced almost weekly, the question bears asking.

The Virtual Worlds Review, for example, a pioneering effort in describing the development of Virtual Worlds, suggests six features common to all Virtual Worlds:

  1. Shared Space: the world allows many users to participate at once.
  2. Graphical User Interface: the world depicts space visually, ranging in style from 2D “cartoon” imagery to more immersive 3D environments.
  3. Immediacy: interaction takes place in real time.
  4. Interactivity: the world allows users to alter, develop, build, or submit customized content.
  5. Persistence: the world’s existence continues regardless of whether individual users are logged in.
  6. Socialization/Community: the world allows and encourages the formation of in-world social groups like teams, guilds, clubs, cliques, housemates, neighborhoods, etc.

However, with more companies and institutions jumping on the VW bandwagon, I begin to wonder if the term is becoming more broadly defined.

Case in point: Weblin.

The Weblin website describes their virtual world as follows:

Weblin “turns the web into a virtual world. Your personalized weblin avatar surfs the web with you, enabling you to see friends and meet new ones on the same site as you. Weblins can chat, move, show emotion, visit lounges, and trade stuff with other weblins.”

Wow! The whole web! Sounds interesting, yes? I thought so and quickly created a weblin for myself. I chose my avatar and decided to surf the web right away.

So.. IS Weblin a Virtual World? Or maybe Virtual World lite? Yes, it allows a shared social space, communication, immediacy. However, is it persistent? Does it allow any level of meaningful user customized content? Not really.

Why is this important? For a couple of years now, educators have been using Second LIfe as the standard by which to evaluate instruction and learning in a virtual world. But not all Virtual Worlds ARE Second Life. They each have unique capabilities and characteristics that must be carefully evaluated.

Does this make Weblin and other platforms “bad”? No. But it does make them different. And a wise educator will take the time to evaluate those differences in light of what s/he is attempting to accomplish with his/her students - and then make the most appropriate choice.