Since virtual worlds serve the purpose of mimicking the real world, the possibilities it has are almost endless. One very innovative way is discussed in "Situated Learning in Virtual Worlds and Immersive Simulations" by by Eytan Bakshy, Brian Karrer, and Lada A. Adamic. They discuss the growing popularity of Virtual worlds such as Minecraft and Sim City and the adaptations of these virtual settings for educational purposes. More specifically, they provide an example with 5th graders Liousa and James who use a simulation of Industrial America in the 1900s to complement their history class. Of course, there are some negative effects of being immersed in a virtual reality. The article "Virtual World May Impact Real-World Behaviour" discusses how online/virtual world personas affect the behaviors of users in real life. They composed a study where the users would play a game for 5 minutes where they would choose a hero or villain as their avatars and then participate in a blind taste test. They were asked to choose between chocolate or chili sauce and found that users who chose the hero would prefer the chocolate sauce and users who chose the villain would prefer the chili sauce. This is a very trivial example but it does prove that virtual reality can affect your behavior. Considering the participants were only involved in the virtual world for 5 minutes, it goes to show how impactful it really is.
Personally, I think virtual worlds are a great thing; they do encourage interaction and creativity among users. For anyone that has played an online multiplayer game, you've probably experienced this first hand. When playing team games, you tend to learn a lot about working with people, adapting to situations, and how to express yourself correctly and efficiently. The future of virtual worlds looks bright with new technologies coming out like the oculus rift. The bigger the market gets, the more uses virtual reality will have whether its for gaming, learning, or any other activity imaginable.
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