EXPAND #4, Chapter 6

Chapter 6 of Teaching With The Tools Kids Really Use deals with the concept of using virtual worlds in the classroom. My personal opinion leads me to state that virtual worlds should be left for an out of school pleasure, but there are advantages to using them in the classroom. One website the end of the chapter promotes as a bridge between using and not using the virtual world as an instructional aide is that of www.there.com. This website seems to be very basic and easy to use. I just have my caution on younger children being online in a world that does not really exist. The website offers the users the ability to create an online person known as an avatar and from there create a world of friends and places. Other than that there is not much more to it. Its is more for social networking than anything else or at least I believe. The one downfall I see is that you can only use the website if you are invited from someone that already uses it. Maybe that is a safety precaution, I do not know. You can not explore anymore than the home screen of the website without being a member. So for practicality concerns, this website would fail. However, for being able to use the website for mere pleasure and travel destination fun, I would say it succeeds. As a user, just do not get too carried away living in a world that only exist in the digital era.

As far as the connection to the text, the book mentions that a big proponent of virtual worlds in the ability of allowing users to create characters or avatars of themselves that represent themselves online. This is okay as long as there is caution being used. I know some kids could get carried away and misrepresentations can occur.  But if a parent is involved in the process then no concern should exist. Not all virtual worlds are online for pleasure, some do have academic purposes behind them. I suppose it depends on the intent and the interest of the student and whether or not they will use such online material. I just fear students will get the concept they can control everything in a virtual world and carry that mindset over to the real world.