Museum Virtual Worlds

Recently, Paul Doherty and I met in SL with New York Hall of Science (NYHOS) curriculum developer (and Museum Virtual Worlds contributor) Ray Ferrer, along with some adventurous high school Explainers.

The Hall is working with their first cohort of high school Explainers to envision, design, and facilitate the virtual space that will be the new Virtual Hall of Science (VHOS). The meeting/tour participants had a look at what the Exploratorium has been doing with exhibit development in virtual environments and got an introduction to some of the environment and object building processes in Second Life. We played with different exhibits and chatted about things the Exploratorium has learned in developing exhibits there, including the interaction benefits of putting the avatar into the exhibit as much as possible and of moving the avatar as part of the exhibit experience. I’m looking forward to seeing how the new VHOS develops!

Visitors from NYHOS check out some exhibits on 'Sploland in SL

Trying out Dance Floor Color Mixer

NYHOS Explainer avatars being moved in an exhibit

For those not familiar with the VHOS project, it is essentially a virtual space within the Active Worlds Universe in which the New York Hall of Science intends to create explorable/interactive exhibits through a collaborative process involving the contributions of Hall staff, Hall Explainers, participants of the Hall’s camp programs and finally (and ideally) casual visitors. The first phase of the VHOS project was simple enough– train a group of 18-23 year olds to use Active Worlds to a point in which they are comfortable creating things as well as showing others how to create things in-world. The second phase was a reminder that no design can be efficient without prototyping; middle schoolers have knack for showing you that the way you think they think is wrong and so anything designed for them will likely have to be revised on the fly. The third phase of the VHOS project was an interesting reminder for myself about how the process of designing something that actually meets needs is iterative. So while I was thinking that I could have veteran participants take a hand in delivering basic skills to newer participants, they just weren’t interested in being teachers. As a solution to this we introduced the “Easter Egg“. As new participants acquainted themselves with the basic navigation and building skills, veteran participants were given a “mission”; first, create an easter egg containing some scripting skills considered advanced for the newbies, then secretly place that egg somewhere on a newbies virtual property. So here we have veterans showing off there skill in a way that newbies can glean important skills from. Some veterans went as far as to create portals that will take you to a secret location containing your personalized easter egg.

Unlike the second phase, the third phase was focused on one content area. Participants designed and developed virtual exhibits dealing only with the phases of matter. During phase two of the VHOS project it appears that participants were a bit overwhelmed by the option of selecting any STEM topic of their choice. Too much time was spent narrowing down the focus of their designs and not enough designing. The effects of this can be seen when contrasting a phase two exhibit, which often illustrates a broad concept, with a phase three exhibit illustrating some characteristic feature of a substance transitioning from one phase of matter to another.

Phase 2 Exhibit

Phase 3 Exhibit

As we continue to run camps the VHOS becomes richer with educational experiences which will inevitably lead to the issue of categorizing the exhibits and directing the user/casual visitor in a way that facilitates learning. I’m excited to see where this is leading as there is already a feel of being in a place where someone has been before you, giving the space and how you experience that space siginificant thought.

VHOS Home Level

Hello World! My name is Ray Ferrer. I’m a Digital Learning Curriculum Developer at the New York Hall of Science currently incorporating virtual worlds into the learning experiences here at the Hall. As the Hall’s first endeavor using 3D virtual environments to facilitate learning, I’m excited to report that our first run was promising as an indicator of the type of learning experiences that can be had.

Using an Active Worlds space graciously donated by Cornell University, participants of the VHOS project went through a four-day camp learning how to navigate and build in the environment, research a STEM topic of their choice, learn exhibit design from and expert, and finally design their own exhibits in-world. But that’s not where it ends– in fact that’s not even how it began. Prior to the camp, a team of Explainers (the Hall’s equivalent of a docent) went through a series of AW trainings in order to help  camp participants realize their designs. At the conclusion of the camp participants completed a draft of their exhibit designs. The images included below are samples.

 

Networks

Airpressure

During the week of April 14th-17th, new participants will begin the process of populating the VHOS space with their own exhibit designs while returning participants work on reiterations of their designs as well as help teach new participants the fundamentals (and obstacles) of designing in the AW environment.

The aprenticeship model that we are using has been succesful for the Hall in past programs and I trust that it will be as effcective in virtual environments. I’m eager to see the designs that come out of this project and will keep the readers of this blog posted.

Educational media developers and researchers at the Cornell University SciCenter put on a workshop with sponsorship from the National Science Foundation and the University of Pennsylvania called the Taxonomy of Virtual Worls for Education.  The workshop brought together virtual worlds technology platform developers, educators, educational media develepers, assessment and evaluation researchers, youth facilitaors, and teens from Philadelphia area schools for two days to discuss our practices in making and working with virtual worlds.  This was an intensive meeting focused on creating a basic taxonomy of virtual worlds and virtual worlds features which could be used by each of the meeting participants as well as by media designers, businesses, attorneys, school districts, legislators, researchers, funding organizations, and others  to better understand virtual worlds and how they can be used by K-12 educators for STEM learning initiatives.

There were several technology platforms/projects represented there including Second Life, Active Worlds (a strong supporter of educational virtual world developers and one a company that has been developing and supporting its platform for over twleve years), Cobalt (open source P2P, object-oriented platform developed at Duke University, built on Open Croquet), Project Wonderland (Sun Microsystems open source platform with strong audio-conferencing elements), Blue Mars (new platform from Avatar Reality, based on a popular 3D game engine), Digital Spaces (open source platform from Digital Space with strong physics support, used by DS in their development of 3D simulations for NASA), and Medulla (an open source toolkit from the Federation of American Scientists for building learning object extensions in various virtual world platforms).

The beginnings of the taxonomy that is being created will be posted online and form the basis for further development of information best practices and organizational strategies for creating, delivering, and assessing immersive education initiatives in virtual worlds.  Hopefully, the taxonomy that’s developed will also help the NSF develop some of it’s own guidelines for evaluating proposals for work in this area.

The preservation of knowledge about virtual worlds, including content and events, has become an area of investigation of media research and archiving departments at universities.  Library science and museum collections divisions at several schools in the U.S. have been using virtual worlds for some time to facilitate student interaction and for distance learning applications. Museum collections staff at several museums are experimenting with virtual worlds as a means of presentation and interaction with digital versions of artifacts.

At a recent workshop that I participated in at Stanford University given by the Media-X group, entitled “Preserving Knowledge in Virtual Worlds”, I learned that the Stanford Humanties Lab with funding support from the U.S. Library of Congress’ National Digital Information Infrastructure Preservation Program (NDIIPP) has worked with the Internet Archive to create a new Virtual Worlds Video Archive “dedicated to the academic investigation and historical preservation of documentation of virtual worlds.” The project is also supported by groups at the University of Illinois, the University of Maryland, and Rochester Institute of Technology.

This is a great step towards archiving virtual worlds so that the growing practice of using them for both fun and serious work  is preserved for historical record and future study.  While the collection is focused on moving images that capture the use of and important events in virtual worlds, it provides a basis for potential future expansion that might include virtual worlds platform software and related documents and images. Having the collection as a hub within the IA that people can contribute to and share will help broaden the accessibility of these videos for research and study. The collection features some interesting moments in virtual worlds history including OnLive Traveller, STARBRIGHT World, AlphaWorld, Oz, Habitat (!), Maze War, Club Caribe, early SL, and video of the final moments of EA-Land, Check out over twelve years of virtual worlds videos from many different companies and research institutions in this growing collection.

On August 1, 2008, the Exploratorium will webcast a total eclipse of the sun as seen from remote Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in northwestern China near the Mongolian border.  Our scientists and media development crew will capture dramatic telescopic images of the eclipse, which will be webcast via the Exploratorium’s website and in Second Life. The program will be hosted by Exploratorium scientists Dr. Robert Semper and Dr. Paul Doherty and feature NASA Heliospheric physicist Dr. Eric Christian who will show some of the latest imagery of the sun from NASA’s SOHO and STEREO missions, and explain how the solar wind can impact us here on Earth.

On Exploratorium Island in Second Life, we’ll host an eclipse viewing event featuring the live webcast, interactive exhibits, and music.  You can view the eclipse webcast in the amphitheater on Exploratorium island as well as other sims including Sploland, Spindrift, Nanotechnology, UK Future Focus, Science School, and SciLands.

Avatars watch a total solar eclipse in Second Life

Putting on this event in SL is presenting some different challenges than the first time we brought a total solar eclipse webcast there in March 2006.  It’s a great opportunity to continue to learn about putting on museum events in a virtual world.  I’ll be sharing more details of the event as well as details of those challenges in the coming days.