Virtual+Classroom

The virtual classroom is quickly developing into the classroom of the future. The Journal of Virtual Worlds Research is a wonderful place to begin. [|JVWR] There is a program by adobe "Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro" that looks useful. I think I'll try it out.

Very interesting--this journal. I'm glad to know about it. KES

The topic for my conference wil be: Introducing the young child to online communities.

For those interested in virtual worlds check out [|Virtual Worlds ReviewI] thought this was a nice list of virtual world characteristics:

A virtual world is an interactive simulated environment accessed by multiple users through an online interface. Virtual worlds are also called "digital worlds," "simulated worlds" and "MMOG's." There are many different types of virtual worlds, however there are six features all of them have in common:


 * 1. Shared Space:** the world allows many users to participate at once.


 * 2. Graphical User Interface:** the world depicts space visually, ranging in style from 2D "cartoon" imagery to more immersive 3D environments.


 * 3. Immediacy:** interaction takes place in real time.


 * 4. Interactivity:** the world allows users to alter, develop, build, or submit customized content.


 * 5. Persistence:** the world's existence continues regardless of whether individual users are logged in.


 * 6. Socialization/Community:** the world allows and encourages the formation of in-world social groups like teams, guilds, clubs, cliques, housemates, neighborhoods, etc.

Scratch is a program that let's you create and program your own games and animations. It has many more functions than I ever got across to show or learn, but once you start fiddle with it, it becomes more and more fascinating. Karen once mentioned someone (the name eludes me) that said that everyone should write scripts for machines. That is what scratch does. It is about programming the “spirit” or avatar to move, talk or dance to fulfill your visions. It will tease your imagination and design skills to determine how it should look, your communication skills should you decide that your program should interact with another person, and your programming skills in order to make the game do what you want it to do.

Go to [] to find the site (MIT are the actual creators of the game/application). You can look at other peoples animations here, and you can also download the required software to create your own animations/games here. I had problems with the suggested windows download, but if you scroll down a little bit there is a “smaller” download for those with windows problems, and that worked fine for me and in the computer lab. Peter "Hunny" Lindeblom