I have been wondering how to conclude my somewhat staggered guest visit and how to say what I take from the current interest in MMORPG and virtual worlds. I have to say getting my head back into this after tramping the wilds of the south Island of New Zealand and Stewart Island was very hard. I plunged back to a 'reality' of sorts when I started facilitating online workshops for teachers and academics using the 3D virtual world and game space Quest Atlantis in their classes. The promise and concerns such environments hold for teachers are or should be shared by all organisations embarking on use of these environments.
What currently attracts them?
- Innovative ways to motivate and excite clients (learners)
- Providing interaction in social contexts outside the usual formal contexts
- Scaffolding independent decision making without dumbing things down
- Providing competition in a supportive environment
- Exposure to a diversity of cultures, languages and perspectives.
What concerns them?
- Regulating online behaviour
- Understanding the boundaries
- Maintaining a duty of care.
These teachers are as Gee suggests visioning new learning systems. This new virtual world technology provides opportunity for us to review our assumptions about learning and social contexts. With these new social contexts comes a raft of legal and ethical issues we cannot ignore. We have to ask what or who dictates the behaviour or establishes the norms, and when and how should we address issues of civil liberties and censorship? The program I am currently engaged in Quest Atlantis is a bespoke design of worlds and infrastructure that addresses many of the teacher concerns. But what can we expect if we enter the open space of already inhabited commercial environments where community norms have begun to develop? I don’t have answers but loads of questions.
Susan Tenby and Beth Kanter wrote on TechSoup describing nonprofit use of virtual worlds as efforts to “Change the world by working in a virtual one”. The article describes aid agencies are working and raising funds in virtual campaigns and projects similar to their efforts in the ‘real world’. The only thing is, as the nonprofit managers agree, we don’t as yet completely understand what those virtual efforts will entail. We know from the headlines that if you build it they definitely will come but they won’t always behave or react in ways that you anticipate. Nic Fulton (quoted in Jenny’s last post) reminds us we may have to be prepared for the totally unexpected. I’m sure we can all comfortably envisage how to behave in controllable circumstances like corporate meetings and talk back events when they occur in virtual worlds.
But what is happening right now in the open social framework of games and virtual worlds while exciting is equally dark and unknown. Take for instance this noted example of "griefing", a term that excuses sometimes heinous behaviour
So where does the responsibility ultimately reside if we decide intellectual property, ethics and civil liberties are important? In many cases I have watched as educational virtual world communities mature, the members moderate each others behaviour and norms emerge that the members own. The community becomes somewhat self regulating. But in all these environments the convenors carry responsibility for the initial regulating, policing and modelling of some basic tenets of behaviour. They are not free for all spaces with open membership and untraceable levels of anonymity nor are they open market places with competing agendas. What are the ethical considerations for organisations seeking to market, inhabit or sponsor virtual environments? And what backlash can organisations and education institutions expect from natives when they immigrate to their worlds?
Gamers themselves are thinking about these issues.
- Ethics in games
- Second Life - bans in marketing and PR for false claims
- Intellectual property and freedom of the press
Constance Stienkheuler sees MMORPG games and virtual worlds as “third places”. Third places were described by Ray Oldenburg, like the English pub as the sanctuaries people maintained between home and work. Places where people would find a warm and inviting community to drop in on whenever needed. If organisations are to embrace these environments do managers/convenors need to start thinking like publicans to take responsibility for keeping order to provide for the safety of their patrons? Or at least recognise that responsibility comes with the license.
I will close this guest spot formally tomorrow by returning to where we began examining the notion of 'fun' in games and virtual worlds.
~ Bronwyn
