Horizon Report Details Virtual Worlds
The New Media Consortium and EDUCAUSE have released their 2007 Horizon Report. It is reproduce-able for non-profit purposes, BTW, so feel free to print out copies and give to stakeholders and decision makers. It offers several ideas of upcoming issues in ed tech (thus the name, as these are items “on the horizon”).
The Horizon Report mentions both virtual worlds and massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) as developing trends in educational technology. As far as virtual worlds, the authors suggest a “time to adoption horizon” of 2-3 years. According to the authors, key benefits of using virtual worlds in education include, “Settings can be created to pertain to any subject or area of study; locations and artifacts can be as realistic and detailed, or as generic and undefined as desired.” By their definitions, virtual worlds include three-dimensional products that are explored by students alone or with small groups of other people.
As far as massively multiplayer educational games (MMEGs?), the authors project a 4-5 year adoption horizon. Indiana’s Synthetic Worlds Initiative was given a prominent mention, as were WorldForge and Multiverse (which are both MMORPG authoring products). Benefits of MMEGs cited by the authors include immersion in foreign cultures and languages, leadership and management development, and skills competition.
Finally, ThinkingWorlds.com was listed in the external links. A British outfit, ThinkingWorlds provides authoring software specifically for three-dimensional educational gaming. Several offerings are available for download at around £29. I suspect at some point somebody will offer an easy to manipulate gaming environment for teachers that will really catch on. Right now, of course, teachers can create their own worlds using modifiable products like The Sims, Dungeon Siege, and Neverwinter Nights. But, such modification usually takes considerable time and effort, and educational pursuits created by individuals don’t seem to be widely shared.
I’ll take a stab at putting the report in APA format for citation purposes. Although not full of research per se, the report might provide some background discussion researchers may wish to use in their own articles.
New Media Consortium and EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative. (2007).
The Horizon Report - 2007 Edition. (Online). Available:
http://www.nmc.org/pdf/2007_Horizon_Report.pdf
