MUVEs allow users to interact via avatar form and communicate with one another through text

After spending so many class periods in the MultiMedia Lab, I have recently noticed the banners along the main wall with graphics from the popular online community, SecondLife. One of my Communication classes has been discussing the growing phenomenon of virtual communities, and I think some of the material we’ve discussed is relevant to the content of this class in terms of the growing participation of users online.

One such article, “Educational Gaming: All the Right MUVEs,” by Mikael Blaisdell, explains how multi-user virtual environments have become an educational tool for learning institutions across the nation and all over the world. Most virtual environments involve the simulation of a geographical area where feature of the environment are represented by computer graphics. MUVEs have been employed by schools in educational settings, such as The River City Project, created by US and Australian professors and students. This program helps students identify a virtual problem (ie contaminated water) and create and test hypotheses to solve it. Through chat features, students can communicate with classmates and teachers and can also interact with other schools’ avatars. Learning institutions across the nation, from Harvard University and UCLA to elementary and high schools, have invested time and money in the implementation of MUVEs in their curriculum.

SecondLife even has a virtual Eiffel Tower for users to sightsee

Another article I have found focuses on the popular virtual environment SecondLife, which is depicted on the banners in the MultiMedia lab. In his article “My So-Called Second Life,” TIME contributor Joel Stein describes his own experience on the site. Not only is he surprised by the strong sexual nature of many user interactions, but he is also shocked by the opportunity for consumerism that SecondLife has created. It has become a mini-empire that has grown in popularity despite its need for considerable downloading time and computer space. Users even pay for virtual goods and services  (clothing, apartments, prostitutes) with actual money, which has driven real world companies to create “virtual branches”—Adidas has a store and Starwood Hotels has resorts on SecondLife, which avatars make use of in exchange for their human counterpart’s real money. Furthermore, users of SecondLife use it as an opportunity to live vicariously through their online identity, experiencing things that they may feel unable to in real life. I find the rise of this and similar communities fascinating—no longer are relationships and experiences achievable in real-time, in everyday actual encounters. Instead, people are “living” their lives in another realm entirely.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irF-V9RUuXo

In this IdeaCity video, SecondLife founder discusses his personal background as well as the creation and possibilities of the site

I think it is particularly interesting that although online communities were originally created for gaming purposes, they have transcended this sphere and achieved greater social educational value. In the same way, blogging may have started as an outlet for personal self-expression and individual entertainment, but it has become a way for students (like our English 16 class) to learn about a variety of topics and viewpoints and to communicate with one another. I can compare this to the way I use blogs: in my own life and for educational purposes. On my own time, I browse a few fashion, cooking and literary blogs. Never before have I looked at them as a tool for my education. But since the start of this class, I have learned so much about the online writing realm. For me, the term literature has always meant paperbound books, novels written and published in print. Essentially, English signified novels. Now, though, I am able to view literature in another framework—in our increasingly technological society, it now means web writing, too. Blogging can be more than entertaining, it can be educational. I think SecondLife and other online communities are part of this developing paradigm through which our society views the world. Virtual experience has begun to blur the lines of reality, and I think its an important issue to take note of.