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What is the value of virtual reality in education for kids?

Education in Virtual Reality: Whyville By Becky Schaller Learning Experiences in Education - NLU May 13, 2007. What is the value of virtual reality in education for kids?.

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What is the value of virtual reality in education for kids?

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  1. Education in Virtual Reality: WhyvilleBy Becky SchallerLearning Experiences in Education - NLUMay 13, 2007

  2. What is the value of virtual reality in education for kids? Since I see little value in swimming, dancing or flying online and because I think chat is a rather slow and cumbersome form of communication, I was having a hard time understanding why Craig and others were so enthusiastic about the educational potential for online virtual communities. Therefore, I was rather intrigued when he suggested that I might do my PowerPoint on this subject.

  3. As I read about the different online communities, I became particularly intrigued with the community of Whyville. This site is targeted toward preteens and teens. The Christian Science Monitor describes it as “the place girls love to go for science.” http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0816/p25s01-lecs.htmlSince there is so much to learn about this site, I focused on Whyville for this presentation.

  4. Whyville

  5. How is Whyville structured? Participants may earn clams (the Whyville currency) by engaging in interactive and educational web activities. The more clams one has, the more options one has as to how to interact in the community. With clams participants can purchase faces, clothes, houses, furniture, cars, dance lessons, and lots of others things. Spending in Whyville is fun.

  6. This is the best summary I’ve found of the educational experiences available in Whyville. Participants earn clams depending upon how successful they are in completing these activities. http://b.whyville.net/smmk/top/signinParse

  7. The Getty Museum in Whyville • This is a little closer look at one of the places listed. Here is a picture of The Getty Museum this virtual community. • “Travel the world in search of art treasures! Compete against others or against yourself while you get to know works of art from the Getty Museum.” http://www.getty.edu/education/for_kids/

  8. Here is my avatar visiting one of the rooms at the Getty. (I’m still working on getting a complete face.) You can also see that someone else is either playing solitaire or wating for someone else to come and play.

  9. Whyvillians started their own newspaper. Here participants can submit art articles, editorials, columns, book or movie reviews, poetry, and other forms of creative writing.

  10. Why-Pox • Whyvillians have the opportunity to learn about a disease by studying an epidemic in their own community. • In 2002 and 2003, two outbreaks of Why-Pox occurred in Whyville. • Participants were asked to help the Center for Disease Control to study the disease. • Citizens also wrote articles in the Whyville Times to discuss and learn about the epidemic. Whyvillians can plug in numbers telling how long the infectious period lasts for a particular disease and how many people each contagious person affects each day. They can then see a chart which will predict how a particular epidemic will likely affect the population.

  11. Government in Whyville Although I’ve seen little mention of this, (Wikipedia being the exception) Whyville does have a (somewhat) participatory form of government. Whyvillians can create and sign petitions. These petitions can be voted upon and if they receive enough votes, then the City Workers (the avatars representing adults in charge of Whyville) will consider whether or not to make this change. Senators are elected and serve six month terms.

  12. I found it’s not real easy earning clams in Whyville. Here’s a picture of me working on one of the activities.

  13. I included this quote to demonstrate that some of the activities really are difficult and have academic rigor. Unfortunately, I didn’t paraphrase this since I don’t understand it well enough. New Ocean Science Activity in the Works in Whyville “A new activity for students visiting the online learning environment Whyville.net is in the early stages of development. This activity will focus on building an understanding of hydrothermal vent environments (their chemistry, biology, and physical characteristics) as well as emphasizing the process of scientific discovery. Students will work individually using oceanographic equipment to discover and sample hydrothermal vent communities. This information will be added to a centralized map of the world’s oceans and will allow students to also work collaboratively to create knowledge for their virtual community. The activity will be dynamic and will change over time allowing for continued interest and opportunities to make new “discoveries”. The scientific expertise for this project is being contributed by many experts studying hydrothermal vents.  The scientist coordinating this effort and serving as the liaison for the project is Paul Craddock in WHOI's Marine Chemistry and Geochemistry department.” Center for Ocean Sciences Education Excellence - New England http://necosee.net/resources/whyville.php

  14. Safety in Whyville Whyville’s creators have thought carefully the safety of Whyvillians. For more information, click on this url. http://b.whyville.net/smmk/top/signinParse

  15. The genius of Whyville is that it doesn’t rely solely on virtual reality for educating participants, but rather it integrates virtual reality with interactive web activities and more traditional academic activities like writing. In some, but not all, ways the virtual community serves as a motivation for participants to engage in the interactive educational activities provided on this site. In fact, whatever learning happens because of the currency and the government is solely dependent upon the virtual community. By creating a site where Whyvillians participate in the activities as a part of a community, the creators have demonstrated how the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

  16. Numedeon's Interactive Community Engine. Whyville Website: http://www.whyville.net/smmk/nice Bibliography Anonymous. (2007) Whyville. Retrieved May 13, 2007 from Wikipedia Website: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whyville J Paul Getty Trust. (year?) For Kids. Retrieved May 13, 2007 from The Getty Website: http://www.getty.edu/education/for_kids/ Numedeon Interaction Community Engine. (2007) Retrieved May 13, 2007 from The Whyville Website: http://www.whyville.net/smmk/nice Thaller, Michelle. (2002) Whyville: the place girls love to go for science. Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved May 13, 2007 from “The Christian Science Monitor” Website: http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0816/p25s01-lecs.html

  17. This is the last slide. I include it because I was having trouble exporting the complete last slide into a PowerPoint.

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