It's my firm belief that frequenting virtual worlds has more benefits than simply entertainment. In support of this is an article, Woman with Parkinson's Reports Significant Physical Recovery After Using Second Life - Academics Researching, published by Wagner James Au at New World Notes. A follow up article about the support site was published the next day. Here's a screenshot:
Many research projects studying virtual worlds and articles discussing such worlds, especially Second Life, are available online. For background, take a look at Newsmaker: A brief history of the virtual world, written by Daniel Terdiman and published by c/net in 2005. Duke University has a case study -- Reality in the Virtual World - A Study of Second Life -- available online. The University of North Carolina at Pembroke has a Center for the Study of Virtual Worlds (data copyrighted 2011). MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) has what looks like a virtual world portal, where it invites you to "Step into another world and explore the 'other' MIT..." How to get there is not clear. Checking in Second Life, I found that a number of other universities have campuses there, but not MIT.
One university very active in Second Life's art scene is the U of Western Australia. Here's a screenshot of the campus' enchanted forest.
Virtual worlds as interactive 3D virtual environments, especially ones that offer the opportunity to build, interest me most. If you would like to see what building in a virtual world is like, try a visit to Bowling Green State University's sandbox and rez something there (menu items: build/select build tool/create tool, then place the object on the ground). You'll need to download a viewer and join first -- both free.
Careful, you might get sucked in.
-- Marge
Many research projects studying virtual worlds and articles discussing such worlds, especially Second Life, are available online. For background, take a look at Newsmaker: A brief history of the virtual world, written by Daniel Terdiman and published by c/net in 2005. Duke University has a case study -- Reality in the Virtual World - A Study of Second Life -- available online. The University of North Carolina at Pembroke has a Center for the Study of Virtual Worlds (data copyrighted 2011). MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) has what looks like a virtual world portal, where it invites you to "Step into another world and explore the 'other' MIT..." How to get there is not clear. Checking in Second Life, I found that a number of other universities have campuses there, but not MIT.
One university very active in Second Life's art scene is the U of Western Australia. Here's a screenshot of the campus' enchanted forest.
Virtual worlds as interactive 3D virtual environments, especially ones that offer the opportunity to build, interest me most. If you would like to see what building in a virtual world is like, try a visit to Bowling Green State University's sandbox and rez something there (menu items: build/select build tool/create tool, then place the object on the ground). You'll need to download a viewer and join first -- both free.
Careful, you might get sucked in.
-- Marge
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