"Terrorism" in SL: Fighting for Digital Rights

Wow! This you've got to see: the Second Life Liberation Army is apparently reeking havoc in some islands seeking a new form of digital rights--beyond those of the developer-client. And using in-world 'terrorism' to do it....

Hmmmmm....

Open Source blog on social impact of MMORPGs

Interesting threads here in this blog from Radio OpenSource--one that asks the question explicitly:

"Up to now, virtual worlds have evolved as entertainment, and as a way for designers to make money. But will they “grow up” and be designed to serve people instead or in addition? Will a virtual world be designed to help people with specific mental disorders treat themselves? Or in an attempt to help a citizenship restore a feeling of civic responsibility? Will some PBS-kids-like entity design an immersive Sesame Street? How about a community-designed world (Wiki-world) that evolves in response to community needs? "

"Virtual Citizen" Association

Here's something very interesting: a group lobbying within the MMORPG community for virtual citizenship rights, etc. This we have to look at and include in the chapter...citizenship education is ALREADY HAPPENING in the synthetic world environment....

2nd Life Stats, etc.

There are quite a few sites that report research/data on various aspects of life in SL. This is something to think about: how to use this to teach social studies content, etc.:

• Libraries on SL
• Economic stats in SL
• Blog on research in SL

My Virtual Life

Very interesting Business Week piece that includes some key issues on property rights. These could be translated into a civics/economics class without needing to 'be' in a MMORPG...Something for us to consider for the chapter. What is potential of this as a teaching tool without needing to be in the game....

What if civics class were an online game?

Interesting think piece from Tom Regan in the Christian Science Monitor.

Serious Gaming and the Classroom

Educause piece on intergrating serious games into the classroom...This focused on creation of a MEGA (multiplayer, educational gaming application) at NCSU...Need to quote from this??

What can school leaders learn from video games?

Interesting piece on how to get games (including some MMORPGs) into schools. Focuses on school leaders and helping them see the potential, bit also some hurdles, etc. Might be used in the 'recommendations to the field' section....

Second Life commerce by real world companies....

"When Toyota Motor Corp. wanted to promote its new Scions to young buyers, it turned to one of the growing number of digital design companies doing business in the popular online universe "Second Life." (Wired article)

Simulation Games in Classrooms

Here's a timely piece on computer simulations in classrooms by Marc Prensky. This might fit nicely with our "next steps" section of the paper. See what you think...

Second Life at Ohio University

Ohio University has made use of Second Life. Check out the article describing it.

Sloodle

Check out Sloodle. It's an online learning environment that combines Second Life with Moodle .

MMORPG and Distance Learning

Here's a NY Times piece about using 2ndLife in a college level distance learning class...

Games in Education...More General

This blog is a good summary of some of the issues presented at the 2006 Serious Games Summit
which also has some good resources...

MMORPs and Civil Society....

I stumbled across this very interesting blog. This post is about an online protest that occured in one of the largest MMORPs in China. It had to do with a player whose avatar was deemed offensive and jailed until her agreed to change it. This resulted in a massive (+60,000 players?) protest of this that was also somehow related to deteriorating Chinese-Japanese relations...This is the kind of 'civic efficacy' that social studies is supposed to foster...

On a different note, this article in the online journal Game Studies describes a MMORP that had as its goal the manipulation of eToys stock price (within the game itself) and how players sought to accomplish this...Sounds like economic education to me...

MMORPG in High Schools

Here's a piece by a guy from Trinity Unversity that explores the use of virtual worlds in teaching high school. A musts read with some important citations that we need to get. I'll try to find these and post soon...

MMORG and Teaching/Learning

Found a guy named John Savery (U. of Akron) through a colleague here...He's done work in the educational potential of MMORG's for classroom practice. I sent him an e-mail, no response yet...

Along similar lines, ran across this grant proposal which lays out how you might actually use MMORG in a K-12 classroom as well as some key citations we might want to check out.

We need to check out Civ3 to see if this might have more potential for the social studies classroom...

A few other pieces:

• MMORPG’s in the college classroom
• NECC presentation outline: Video Games as Constructivist Learning Environments (http://topics.typepad.com/pondering/games/index.html)
• Rochester Castle MMORPG: Instructional gaming and collaborative learning at a Western Australian school: includes a "where to start" section...
• A Second Life 'action research' study blog: http://www.secondlife.intellagirl.com/2006/06/26/working-toward-an-outilne/

Second Life Economics

Found several interesting pieces at CNETnews.com. This one is about 2nd life's virtual economoy and this one is about the market for real estate in 2nd life...

Key points raised in each: (1) copright, propoerty rights, (2) lack of 'government' enforcement of propoerty rights, (3) degree to which users (the 'people') will demand some redress of these perceived injustices...

Give these a read and let's touch base...

MMORG and Teaching Social Studies

Resources

Edward Castronova-RMT Overview

Edward Castronova-The Economist

Game Studies-On Virtual Economies

Games and Culture (Academic Journal)

mmorgchart.com (Size of MMORG world)

Academic Papers

SSRN-On the Research Value of Large Games Natural Experiments in Norrath and Camelot by Edward Castronova

SSRN-Real Products in Imaginary Worlds by Edward Castronova

SSRN-On Virtual Economies by Edward Castronova

SSRN-Virtual Property by Joshua Fairfield

SSRN-Virtual Worlds A First-Hand Account of Market and Society on the Cyberian Frontier by Edward Castronova

State of Play III Video Time Capsule (Videos from first 3 SOP conferences, including an interview with Nick DeKanter!)

Synthetic Worlds Initiative at Indiana University

Terra Nova (The Blog...)

G4 - Videos - Search