Texas Students to Explore Science in Online Virtual World

Lee Wilson over at Headway Strategies has written another fine article on educational gaming. Recently, Technology & Learning published a two part article by Wilson on the myths surrounding educational videogames. Formerly a senior exec over at Harcourt, Pearson, and Chancery Software, Wilson runs a consulting firm in Austin and writes The Education Business Blog. He is quite knowledgeable when taking the pulse of ed tech, and I quote him in an upcoming article of my own coming out in the next couple months. Right now, Wilson says, the cutting edge of ed tech is in online virtual worlds.

The March issue of Cable in the Classroom Magazine includes an article by Wilson entitled Virtual Worlds = Virtual Learning. In it, Wilson describes how Whyville.net is being leveraged by the Texas Workforce Commission to engender positive attitudes toward science in school kids and perhaps help instill the notion of pursuing science as a career. The TxWC is partnering with Whyville to create the Whyville Bioplex, with the goal of reaching “25,000 students with a biotech experience in their middle school career-education class in the next year.”

Whyville is a STEM-based academic virtual world (VW), where students can login and play at educational games with other kids around the country. I’ve encouraged teacher use of Whyville in my district, and listed it on my Top 10 Free Educational Videogames.

Wilson summarizes the benefits of using VWs for science exploration and gives a brief history of Whyville in the article. Here’s his summary paragraph:

The scientific method is an active practice. We do lab work to move beyond theory—to teach students how to be scientists. Virtual worlds allow us to safely take students to the frontiers of science where the really interesting questions await. By exposing them to the reality of science, we can engage a new generation of minds in this great endeavor.

Make Your Own Online Educational World with VastPark

Educators love to appropriate existing technologies for pedagogical purposes. And so we have educational radio programs, TV programs, videogames … and instructional applications in virtual worlds (VWs) such as Second Life and Active Worlds. However, there is an unfortunate lack of control in VW environments, as griefers manifest themselves with online terrorism, and students may potentially wander into explicit adult areas.

What educators really need are VWs they control completely, regulating who has access as well as the pedagogy that is covered. Dr. Greg Jones over at UNT is a pioneer of this idea. Now, the potential for teachers to easily create their own online education worlds is proffered with a new service from VastPark, which bills itself as a “distributed virtual worlds platform.” Essentially, you design your VW using VastPark’s tools, invite users to stroll your virtual realm with their avatars, and achieve your online objectives whether that be making money or teaching students at a distance.

VastPark is in closed beta, but is available by invitation. For those who’ve seen the tools in beta, such as Jason Stoddard over at Centric, the worlds are amazingly detailed, and remarkably easy to work with. I’ve taken a look at CEO Bruce Joy’s video of VastPark’s Creator Tool, and can attest that it looks fantastic. Its feature list is also impressive.

If VastPark can help teachers easily make their own VWs, we may see a surfeit of online worlds dedicated to educational purposes.