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Conceptualizing and foresight of virtual worlds as learning scenarios
Abstract
In this paper we analyze the components of virtual worlds supporting learning proposals in these scenarios. The analysis takes into account significant changes in the conceptualization of virtual worlds that have led to overcome their status as distinct social technological environments, where practices take place isolated from the physical setting. The increased transparency of mediations, which traditionally have placed limits on the immersion and interaction between people and virtual objects, implies that they occupy a secondary place as a key element in the definitions of virtual worlds. Based on this consideration, the article analyzed the other components that support the social layer of virtual worlds and provides them with a high educational potential. Among other aspects of formation, the article explores the ability of technological mediation, immersion and social presence, non-physical materiality or practice that is itself part of a virtual world so defined. Finally, the need to design appropriate educational theories and hybrid scenarios that result from the interactions in-out of physical reality is discussed.
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Today's social virtual worlds (SVW) are beginning to realize Stephenson's vision of the metaverse: a future massive network of interconnected digital worlds. Tens of millions of people already use these kinds of environments to communicate, collaborate, and do business. Big companies are also moving into these digital realms. Thus, in a context in which the Web is becoming increasingly social, we believe that SVWs are beginning to shape the knowledge-based and glo balized societies and economies of tomorrow. Obviously, an urgent need exists to further understand SVWs and their implications for theory and practice. This article constitutes a first attempt to bring researchers into some of the business, social, technical, legal, and ethical issues related to SVWs. We anticipate that researchers will need to build new theories and concepts for SVWs, to explore the frontiers between reality and virtuality.
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contends that technical definitions of virtual reality beg the question of what it is about such systems that sustains the illusion of reality in the mind of the user / refer to a family of computer programs known as MUDs [Multi-User Dimension] / MUDs are networked, multiparticipant, user-extensible systems most commonly found on the Internet / MUD systems promote cultural understandings through the creation of commonly understood ways of symbolizing social and emotional contexts / MUD users form cultural groups—communities—that enable members to form close attachments and to regulate and punish disruptive members (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
The articles that make up this Sociological Inquiry feature emerged from the 1995 meetings of the American Sociological Association. The authors included in this issue were expressly solicited for a special session on “Technologically Generated Communities.” The authors were asked to individually provide their own perspectives on the intersection of technology, community, and social action. My essay attempts to crystallize several key changes that the new communication technologies demand of conceptual frames long embraced by sociologists. In particular, the pages that follow propose some necessary adjustments to the ways in which sociologists formulate and apply three key analytic concepts: social interaction, social bonding, and empirical experience.
The interaction between real and virtual spaces can be reconceptualized by mobilizing the notion of cybernetic space to signify the relationship between spaces, culture and identity in the synthetic space we tend to live in. The new metaphor can allow for a holistic examination of the Internet in popular culture.
Constructing a virtual world requires certain technical skills and the ability to make difficult decisions regarding how the world will look and feel. However, the most difficult aspect of building a virtual world has less to do with the building of the virtual spaces and more to do the conceptualisation of how teaching and learning will occur in this new type of environment. This paper examines some of the issues involved in the process of planning a virtual learning world by focusing on key design questions that need to be asked prior to building virtual instructional spaces.
There is a need for interface design guidance for virtual environments, in order to avoid common usability problems. To develop such guidance an understanding of user interaction is required. Theoretical models of interaction with virtual environments are proposed, which consist of stages of interaction for task/goal oriented, exploratory and reactive modes of behaviour. The models have been evaluated through user studies and results show the models to be reasonably complete in their predictions about modes and stages of interaction. Particular stages were found to be more predominant than others. The models were shown to be less accurate about the exact flow of interaction between stages. Whilst the general organisation of stages in the models remained the same, stages were often skipped and there was backtracking to previous stages. Results have been used to refine the theoretical models for use in informing interface design guidance for virtual environments.
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