BP17_2009113_Discussion Board_Virtual Worlds_Response

Retroactively posting Discussion Board entry to blog:

Week 3 - Discussion Board - Virtual Worlds

Van Manson wrote: 1.) – Field Trips: - a. The one area I truly like the thought of “Virtual Worlds” is in the realm of using them as a vessel to explore new and unreachable areas in the vain of a virtual field trip. Students of all ages are able to visit Europe, museums, islands, and any other destination imaginable all without leaving their seat in the classroom. That is truly awesome.

Clip art licensed from the Clip Art Gallery on DiscoverySchool.com

@Van - Taking a "field trip" through a virtual world - After visiting a location in a virtual world, what can I really say about the actual location it represents? I think about this whenever navigating through a virtual emulation of a real-world location. The broad strokes of structural objects and visual textures can be included, and sound effects can be added for ambiance in the setting. However, there is an extreme investment of time and effort needed to include realistic detail in a virtual world, and the limitations of the technology are that the virtual emulation will be an overview that barely approaches "real".

The successful field trip examples that I've seen in SecondLife have taken this inherent factor and used it to "represent" the location, without trying too hard to reproduce it. A university tour, showing the locations of all campus buildings, was useful because the dimensional relationships were practical usable information for the student to find their way in the real world. The details of the building materials or landscaping were non-critical to the information, so they were abstracted and minimized.

In contrast, a tour of Paris in SecondLife placed many of the distinctive historical sites unrealistically but conveniently close together, showing a menagerie of landmarks in a small area (surrounded, of course, by water). This seemed to me to be more of a showcase of the builder's skills in creating objects, and less of an accurate informational display about the featured area.

One virtual world aspect that I could appreciate is the sense of human-scale in relation to different 3D environments. Unfortunately, this is minimized by the tech needs of building within SecondLife as well as the user's ability to change the scale of their avatar.

Walking (virtually) past the digital Vietnam Memorial and realizing how far it extends, or walking (virtually) under the digital Arc de Triomph and realizing how tall it is in comparison to your human-sized avatar are valuable educational contexts provided by the dimensionality. To be able to perform the Tawaaf (circumambulation of the Ka'aba, walking around it seven times counter-clockwise) for a virtual Haaj in the SecondLife Islamic lands would be an important digital activity that most people could not do in real life. In contrast, the digital slave ship could not be made as small as its actual size - a significant aspect the virtual world was attempting to convey - because the standard avatars would not be able to enter it. Impressively large-scale real locations like Red Square in Moscow were truncated in size in their virtual representations, probably for practical navigation and rendering efficiency. And, the ability to be represented as a tiny fairy or a gigantic dragon takes the human-scale understanding out of the experience.

Being able to take on the native costumes and appropriate wardrobe of a virtual space - whether a different location on the globe, a different time in history, or a fantastic imaginary place - adds to the field trip visitor experience. Putting on a StarFleet uniform in the Star Trek Science Museum or wearing a virtual burka in the Islamic areas adds to the immersive effect.

In trying to reproduce details of a real-world site within the limitations of the technology, it is inevitable to have compromises of accuracy. Representing only key aspects of an area gives better communication of the VR intent. In the meantime, a virtual visitor can only experience the aspects of an emulated location that the builder has provided.


References: 
Discovery Education. (2008). Field Trip. [Clip art]. Copyright © 2000 Discovery.com, Inc. Originally published by Discovery.com, Inc. Clip art images Copyright © 1998 Mark A. Hicks. Originally published by Mark A. Hicks. Retrieved from http://school.discoveryeducation.com/clipart/clip/fieldtrp.html
Discovery Education. (2008). Laptop Thinking. [Clip art]. Copyright © 2000 Discovery.com, Inc. Originally published by Discovery.com, Inc. Clip art images Copyright © 1998 Mark A. Hicks. Originally published by Mark A. Hicks. Retrieved from http://school.discoveryeducation.com/clipart/clip/laptop3.html