Modeling Reality With Virtual Worlds

A virtual world is an interactive simulated environment accessed by multiple users through an online interface. The virtual world depicts space visually, ranging in style from 2D "cartoon" imagery to more immersive 3D environments. There are many different types of virtual worlds. All off them allow many users to participate at once and interaction takes place in real time. The world allows users to alter, develop, build, or submit customized content. The virtual world allows and encourages the formation of in-world social groups like teams, guilds, clubs, cliques, housemates, neighborhoods, etc.

Virtual worlds have been created for many different purposes. Commercial gaming worlds tend to be the largest and most common type of virtual world that are strongly influenced by fantasy, science fiction, and anime genres of literature and film. Those gaming worlds consistently follow formal conventions such as character-focused avatars, progression through an interactive narrative storyline, and a series of competitive events.

Some virtual worlds have been created for educational purposes. Academic institutions or nonprofit organizations mostly sponsor educational worlds. Forms of Educational worlds include 3D recreations of museum and gallery spaces, computer programming tutorials, virtual libraries, and meeting spaces for online university courses. Similarly, IBM’ idea of creating virtual world for employee trainings may be very attractive to young employees. This makes people “more willing to take risks and more flexible in their thinking”. (Ed Frauenheim)

In addition to the above, there are many commercial community-focused virtual worlds that put emphasis on socializing rather than gaming. These worlds are strongly influenced by the cultures of text-based chat rooms. Participants are there to socialize with others and, in many cases, create and decorate a personal space such as a home, room, or apartment. Social worlds tend to use settings based on idealized versions of reality. Most provide some basic building tools and the ability to host activities and events that revolve around a wide variety of topics.

Social Networking Sites!

Social networking has encouraged new ways to communicate and share information. The most popular social networking websites that are being used regularly by millions of people include:


FACEBOOK - Users can add friends, send messages, and update their personal profiles to notify friends about themselves. Users can join networks organized by city, workplace, school, and region.

Facebook’s features:

1. Wall - a space on every user's profile page that allows friends to post messages for the user to see,
2. Pokes - allows users to send a virtual "poke" to each other; a notification then tells a user that they have been poked.
3. Photos - allows users to upload albums and unlimited number of photos.
4. Status - allows users to inform their friends of their actions.
5. Wall is visible to anyone who is able to see that user's profile, depending on privacy settings.

6. News Feed - appears on every user's homepage and highlights information including profile changes, upcoming events, and birthdays of the user's friends.
7. Tag, or label users in a photo - user can tag the friend in the photo. This sends a notification to the friend that they have been tagged, and provides them a link to see the photo.
8. Chat - allows users to communicate with friends and is similar in functionality to desktop-based instant messengers.
9. Gifts - allows users to send virtual gifts to their friends that appear on the recipient's profile.

MYSPACE - anyone can customize the layout and colors of their profile page with virtually no restrictions; it allows users to customize their user profile pages by entering HTML into such areas as "About Me," "I'd Like to Meet," and "Interests." Users also have the option to add music to their profile pages via MySpace Music, a service that allows bands to post songs for use on MySpace.

MySpace’s features:

1. MySpace Records - artists can upload their songs onto MySpace and have access to millions of people on a daily basis.
2. Bulletins - posts that are posted on to a "bulletin board" for everyone on a MySpace user's friends list to see. Bulletins can be useful for contacting an entire friends list without resorting to messaging users individually. Bulletins are deleted after ten days.
3. Groups - feature which allows a group of users to share a common page and message board.
4. MySpace IM - an instant messenger. Users who use MySpace IM get instant notification of new MySpace messages, friend requests, and comments.
5. MySpace TV - similar to the YouTube website.
6. MySpace News - displays news from RSS feeds that users submit. It also allows users to rank each news story by voting for it. The more votes a story gets, the higher the story moves up the page.

FRIENDSTER - allow users to contact other members, maintain those contacts, and share online content and media with those contacts. The website is also used for dating and discovering new events, bands, and hobbies. Users may share videos, photos, messages and comments with other members via their profile and their network.

LINKEDIN - LinkedIn allow users to connect professionally and build relationships with people. It also allows users to research companies with which they may be interested in working. The purpose of the site is to allow registered users to maintain a list of contact details of people they know and trust in business. The people in the list are called Connections.

• A contact network is built up through direct connections, second-degree connections and third-degree connections. This can be used to gain an introduction to someone a person wishes to know through a mutual, trusted contact.
• It is used to find jobs, people and business opportunities recommended by someone in one's contact network.
• Employers can list jobs and search for potential candidates. Job seekers can review the profile of hiring managers and discover which of their existing contacts can introduce them.

BLOGS vs. WIKIS

1. Blogs vs. Wikis - SIMILARITIES

• Easy to set up and edit
  Access to anyone in the world
• Unable people to express their own ideas
  Link to other websites
• Insert photos
  Place to collaborate on projects
  Public form of communication

2. Blogs vs. Wikis – DIFFERENCES

BLOGS: Usually single author; Usually personalCollaborative; Reverse Chronological order; Newest entry at the top; Only blogger can update the post;Each post followed by signature; External Links.

WIKIS: Collaborative Authoring; Usually objectiveMany people edit the page; Structure determined by content and users; Allow open editing; Anonymous posts; External and Internal Links.

IDEA: I think students and teachers should use both Blogs and Wikis more often as this would allow them to communicate more effectively and become a place to collaborate on projects. They both are generating different types of discussion and may successfully suit educational purposes if used properly by individuals. “Wikis excel at collaboration” and “are intended to maintain a series of unique documents as their content evolves” as stated in “How to use Wikis for Business” by Ezra Goodnoe. He explains that Wiki can centralize all types of data, such as spreadsheets, Power Point slides, Word Documents and other extensively used by students on everyday basis when working on group projects. Collaborative format of Wikis would be a central location where shared documents can be viewed and revised by students when working on a particular topic.