Consolarium

We spend a lot of time in the Consolarium discussing new and emerging technologies for learning. Recently we have been talking a lot about virtual worlds, how they can be used in education and the safety issues associated with such environments.

We believe that it is unlikely that younger children (early years and lower primary) will ever grow into the same sort of social networking spaces that older children currently occupy. The reason for this is that most modern social networking spaces are very ‘text’ driven but the social networking spaces that younger children currently occupy are 3D immersive environments. They include places such as Club penguin, Moshi Monsters and Lego Universe. 3D immersive universes provide powerful opportunities for learning but in parallel it is vitally important that we teach young people to behave responsibly and how to keep safe in such environments.

We have a lot of exciting virtual world projects planned for 2010 but our current flagship project is CANVAS (Children’s Art in the Virtual Arena of Scotland). Derek has already introduced this project in an earlier blog post. The great thing about CANVAS is not only will it provide place for children to showcase and discuss their artwork but it will also include an Internet Safety Pyramid. The pyramid will provide a place to teach about responsible use and behavior within 3D worlds in a safe and secure environment.

Anyway, we are very proud of what we have achieved so far with CANVAS and we were delighted to hear that the project is up for a 2009 edublog award for the best use of a virtual world. If you think what we have created is worthwhile then why don’t you pop over to the edublog award site and vote for us now!

If you are a school in Scotland and doing any exciting work with virtual worlds we would love to hear from you.

Categories: Consolarium, Virtual Worlds