Virtual environments for the category: 'Educational'
Metaplace: Virtual Spaces for the Masses?
Could a new virtual environment platform, Metaplace, bring virtual spaces to the masses? Raph Koster, one of the former developers of massively multiplayer online game Ultima Online who quit his job to form a brand new MMO company, thinks so. He recently announced Metaplace, a brand new virtual world venture that promises an open-platform, open-ended approach to virtual worlds. Users of Metaplace (http://www.metaplace.com) will be able to build 3D virtual worlds quickly using simple, sharable building blocks and templates.
The resulting online spaces, which could be used for gaming, e-commerce, or socializing, can be embedded in a webpage, MySpace or Facebook profile or weblog.
“We are out to democratise virtual worlds and bring them to absolutely anybody,” said Mr Koster, founder of Areae, the company that is producing Metaplace. “You can come to the site, press a button and have a functioning virtual world that supports multiple users in about 30 seconds.”
While details are sparse at the moment, all we know is that Metaplace is a very ambitious attempt to go beyond merely building a virtual world. It’s an attempt to build an open virtual world standard. Metaplace claims that the platform will be able to integrate smoothly into current web standards. This means that people should be able to integrate whatever is built in Metaspace into websites, RSS feeders, and more.
Recently featured as one of the top 40 hottest startups at the TechCrunch40 conference, Metaplace is definitely a virtual environment to keep an eye on.
Forterra Systems
Forterra Systems at a Glance
- In short: The sister of There, a private virtual world technology for domains such as e-learning, military and homeland security training, healthcare, etc.
- URL: http://www.forterrainc.com
- Maintained by: Forterra Systems since 2005.
- Price: Depends on service
- Forterra System Requirements
- Platforms supported: PC
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Second Life Education Workshop 2007 Proceedings
The third annual Second Life Community Convention (SLCC2007) was held on August 24-26 in Chicago, a conference where over 800 enthusiasts of the virtual world gather and share ideas and best practices. How popular has making use of the virtual environment Second Life for educational purposes become? The size of the proceedings, three times as large as last years (118 pages!) should be a good indication. The preface notes that membership on the Second Life Educators Listserv grew from 500 members in 2006 to 3900 this past year.
These proceedings serve as a snapshot of the state of education in Second Life as it is today. It includes “exemplar case studies illustrating how institutional issues in establishing Second Life can be overcome and a number of examples showing how the platform is being adapted to support learning in a wide range of fields and with diverse groups of learners.” It is notable that the sciences and arts are both well represented, demonstrating the breadth of interest and content found in the community of educators that use Second Life.
Selected highlights include Global Kids Inc. Best Practices for Using Virtual Worlds for Education, various ways educators have taught nutrition, emergency preparedness training, the environment, creative arts. etc.
Read the Second Life Education Workshop Proceedings here.