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Project Wonderland: Good Avatars Make Good Neighbors
7/2/2008
that video panel, resolution is as good as real-life, but by being once removed (Good Avatars Make Good Neighbors) from the panel, the psychology and communication seem natural.First Wonderland Education Space
Project Wonderland has just announced its first education space, created by Boston College, The University of Essex, the University of Oregon, and Saint Paul College. Jonathon Richter of the University of Oregon said: "The launch of Project Wonderland on Media Grid (http://mediagrid.org) is a signal of a sea change in human learning potential. Connecting the 3D learning assets of Project Wonderland to the Media Grid and providing accessibility will now allow MERLOT's Center for Learning in Virtual Environments (CLIVE) vision to sprout in earnest." (Dr. Richter is a researcher in virtual environments and Director of the Center for Learning in Virtual Environments).
Second Life has been the most-mentioned virtual environment, and has become a cultural phenomenon, even serving as a "set" for one episode of CSI New York. Yet most educators ask either about what to do in Second Life besides chatting with a flying rhinoceros or whether Second Life is safe. Wonderland answers these two questions by the addition of individual space controls and by allowing these controls to create spaces appropriate for business of education uses. In other words, the spaces are sequestered just as classrooms are from other campus activities.
A Strong Collaborative Team
Richter, in an e-mail after the announcement, talked of the value of the MERLOT community's experience in online teaching and learning and how the community will help guide the evolution of this new Wonderland space. Aaron Walsh, Director of the Media Grid and Immersive Education Initiative (Media grid is open source, supported by the Grid Institute, a for-profit organization), opened the June 20 event launching The Education Grid, "a subset of the Media Grid developed specifically for academia." Avatars teleported in from various regions of SL to take a tour.
None of this would be possible without the ongoing commitment of Sun Microsystems to open education. Sun helped coordinate this launch through its Sun Immersion Special Interest Group (Sun ISIG).
Richter went on to say, "We're investing in Wonderland now because we estimate that, while environments such as Linden Lab's Second Life will continue to have advantages, this platform is going to be a major contender in education as a preferred platform for K12 and higher educational use within just a few years."
Nothing could be more important to higher education in this century than telepresence. But, humans are extraordinarily sensitive to how that presence is created psychologically. Second Life demonstrated without question (just as video games do) that the MUVE (Multi-User Virtual Environment) approach has got it right. People choose to go there in large numbers to meet people, to gather, to see friends, to learn, build, make money, and take a mental vacation from their physical "real-world."
Formal educational use of MUVEs, however, has been slight, so far. Still, the Wonderland collaborative -- universities and colleges, Sun Microsystems, the Education Grid, MERLOT -- can put a twinkle in your eye.
Trent Batson, Ph.D. has served as an English professor, director of academic computing, and has been an IT leader since the mid-1980s. He is currently Co-Lead for the Web2ePortfolio Initiatve (W2eP), a Senior Associate with the TLT Group, and Editor of Campus Technology's Web 2.0 e-newsletter. batsontr@mit.edu
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