The Next Dimension
Searching for education application in the virtual world.
Michael Simkins, techLEARNING.com T&L News, Week of April 28, 2008
Excerpts:
...What's new is the merging of these technologies to make possible new kinds of collaboration—even in education.
...And as the cost comes down, the chances grow that virtual worlds will work in education. NASA, in fact, announced plans recently to create a virtual world for students that would enable them to do all sorts of things from tinkering with reactions in living cells to practicing operating and repairing expensive equipment to experiencing microgravity.
PARC's Roberts sees all sorts of educational applications. Elementary school students might examine or create objects in playful settings. Middle and high school students might create all sorts of examples of concepts in physics and math.
Collaborative virtual worlds afford students the opportunity to look inside things and see how they work. "It's a counterpoint to the consumer culture that just wants to sell you a new thing," Roberts says. "You buy it and it does what it does, and there is no way to repurpose it. Part of our job is to create things that do come apart and are programmable in some way. For example, you could never take apart a nanotechnology device in a real world, but you could in a virtual world."
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