Living and Learning on Whyville.net
Multiplayer games and worlds have increased in popularity with millions of players now spending dozens of hours or more online each week. We know surprisingly little about what younger players do in virtual worlds like Teen Second Life, Habbo Hotel, Club Penguin, Virtual Laguna Beach, There and others. Discussions about their promises and problems have been initiated among researchers, parents, developers, and policy makers. The purpose of this blog is to make our current research publicly available about one such teen virtual world called Whyville and to solicit feedback and initiate discussion.
Whyville.net currently has over 2 million registered players ages 8-16. In Whyville, teens are encouraged to play casual science games in order to earn a virtual salary in ‘clams’, which they can spend on buying and designing parts for their avatars, projectiles to throw at other users, and other goods. The general consensus among Whyvillians (the citizens of the virtual community of Whyville) is that earning a good salary and thus procuring a large number of clams to spend on face parts or other goods is essential for fully participating in the Whyville. Like other virtual worlds, hundreds of cheat sites have been developed outside of Whyville to reveal shortcuts and introduce new players to virtual customs.
Funded by the National Science Foundation, UCLA researcher Yasmin Kafai and her team study many different aspects of Whyville including science learning, avatar creation and virtual identity, the role of cheating, and flirting and dating through Whyville.
Synthetic Play examines gender differences and similarities in gaming on Whyville in an after school club. It compares and contrasts the different approaches that boys and girls employ in designing their avatars and in socializing with others online and offline.
Download PDF here Tracing Insider Knowledge Across Time and Spaces looks at how a secret command that can only be learned by talking with other people is learned by after-school club members both online and offline.
Download PDF here Stealing from Grandma or Generating Cultural Knowledge? looks at teen-created cheat sites where kids post answers, guides, and advice about how to succeed in the games on Whyville. We discuss the impact of these sites on kids' learning and the Whyville community as a whole.
Download PDF here Your Second Selves checks out kids' tools for building avatars (i.e., an online 'look') on Whyville and how there are social constraints to making cool looks even though there are almost unlimited options for designing parts for avatars.
Download PDF here Blacks Deserve Bodies Too looks at how kids choose to represent race in their avatars (online images of self) and what they have to say about being white, black, or latino/a in Whyville.
Download PDF here
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