What’s the value of virtual worlds in education? Alfred H. Essa, deputy chief information officer of Minnesota State Colleges and Universities, writes in his blog that one answer can be found in a YouTube video.
In it, an unnamed MIT researcher demonstrates the Assist program, which allows users to design moving, mechanical systems by simply drawing on a screen.
Mr. Essa writes:
“All human creativity, including science, art, and literature, are imaginative activities. The ability to imagine different possibilities and interact with them is one of the virtues of virtual worlds.”
He seems to imply that virtual worlds with known object-creation systems such as Second Life and Dryad are particularly useful in education because they allow a user to explore physical concepts in a virtual space.—Hurley Goodall
