Our objective for this assignment was to to create a richer learning experience for high school students by combining entertainment, games, virtuality and education on an easily accessible browser-based platform. Ultimately, we developed Fractor World to be a collaborative learning hub on the Metaplace platform that exposes students age 13+ to social, political and economic issues and encourages action on their behalf through a confluence of Fractor newsfeeds, games, videos and other multimedia.

As a brief overview of our project, Fractor World is designed for use by high school teachers and their students. Games embedded within the Fractor World learning environment are suitable for age 11+, while the Metaplace platform is navigable for age 13+. Overall, the Fractor World community is a “gamelike” environment that allows educators to aggregate appropriate topics and activist opportunities for students age 11+.

While the site is game-oriented, it is carefully structured and organized based on the topics and activist opportunities Fractor hopes to advertise and encourage. Primary emphasis is placed on learning from playing, and supplemental information is available on both The Playground and The library in the forms of RSS feeds, instructional videos, relevant websites, and articles of interest. As a functional platform, one of our main goals for Fractor World was to create a sense of community and interactivity within Fractor. Interactivity is present through the nature of the 3-D virtual worlds and chat settings, and through the game-like nature of such environments (chat, avatar, world-building, games). Additionally, Fractor World features a rich sampling of RSS feeds, videos, images, and web links, which all make integrating Fractor World into classrooms simple and effective; it’s easily adaptable for the needs of the students and educators, and makes learning more fun and dynamic than only following lesson plans by the textbook.

Fractor World Playground

By design, Fractor World is more interactive than Moodle and Blackboard, although it is a somewhat unconventional LMS platform. For some educators chiefly concerned about storage capacity, Fractor World may be used as a supplementary learning tool and one that is easily embeddable on a class blog or within other LMS platforms like Moodle. See: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10275758-2.html. For educators who wish to use Fractor World as a primary LMS, surveys, quizzes, and lesson plans may be easily incorporated throughout the platform. Additionally, depending on the educator’s abilities, new worlds can represent new lesson plans allowing for easy chronological transition through course curriculum.

As primary administrator of Metaplace/Fractor, educators have the option to tailor RSS feeds, videos, and games for their particular curriculum. Additionally, educators have the authority to serve as content managers, space-designers, and overall administrators of site, bringing creativity into education and tailoring lesson plans as necessary. To facilitate educator’s module building, Fractor should distribute a complete functionality – topic, links, RSS Feeds, and games list – so educators can maximize Fractor World’s potential. Overall, Fractor should consider Fractor World a central hub through which it can partner with teachers and schools to increase awareness, organize fund raisers, and create community outreach programs. Fractor specific newsfeeds, “action” feeds, and games can be used by teachers to promote social action and build enthusiasm for the issues that Fractor identifies as critical problems in need of attention.

Fractor World Library

While we hope that our presentation reflected a relatively polished product, we encountered a number of social/collaborative and technical challenges developing Fractor World. In terms of our social/collaborative challenges, one big factor was geographical separation and time differences. To build a successful project, we all needed to organize and keep each other up to date on goals despite significant time differences. Furthermore, coming to a consensus about project goals and methods proved to be difficult, but ultimately beneficial. Individual ideas, while duly recognized, had to be set aside to allow for a mutually agreed-upon consensus about the overall direction of the project. Also, ensuring all edits and additions to the site remained fluid and consistent with the work of the rest of the group was a priority as we needed the end result to be as cohesive as possible. As such, organizing all of our efforts to create a specific “look” and “feel” for the site, and assigning roles and responsibilities to each member to ensure that every topic was sufficiently covered and no gaps were left in our work were top priorities.

We also had a number of technical challenges as our group members have varying technical training and experience with computers/programming/internet navigation. What’s more, Metaplace itself is a relatively new platform and we experienced a few major issues. One was when Metaplace lost our site for over a day and we had to rebuild everything we had created. Smaller, but equally substancial challenges we faced were: access to well-made, good looking objects that suited our needs, functionality issues when assigning behaviors to objects (Youtube videos didn’t always work, and some external links would cause Metaplace to freeze), and site consistency when inserting objects and organizing our World (objects didn’t always stay where they were supposed to, and landscaping and other terrain building functions were unreliable and hard to work with). Over all the biggest challenge was that we had very specific ideas and goals for the project which needed to be adjusted because team members lacked the technical understanding to accomplish them. In many instances, Metaplace lacked the functionality to allow us to realize many of our ideas, and especially so in relation to game-creation.

Moving forward, we envision many important applications for Fractor World for teachers, students, and the general population. While Fractor World is currently somewhat limited by the ongoing development of its Metaplace platform, we believe Fractor World might be considered for the following uses:

Games: “The Activist”, “The Paper Boy”

Mobile: Josephine’s suggestion of mobile apps/collaborative play on mobile devices.

Geotagging: The user’s ability to click an area in the world and see what non-profit groups exist in that specific region.

For a better view of our project and to see some relevant screenshots, supplemental videos, and game descriptions, please visit: http://docs.google.com/Presentation?docid=0AZ_UMkdL1leRZGdwcXNxN21fNzAyZGI0bTNoZg&hl=en&invite=CLzmqtUE

Critical Foundations for Fractoplace

The response process models the responsiveness, cooperation, and content-relevant communication between the learner and the group. (Chang/Lim) 9The base of our project was created out of the ideas of shared creation and information transfer. Both Fractor and Metaplace are based on the idea of sharing information and relevant action and therefore support a “game” model that allows for exploration, cooperation and communication.

Much social organization no longer fits a group-centric model of society. Work, community, and domesticity have moved from hierarchically arranged, densely knit, bounded groups to social networks. (Hunsinger) Internet communications have given rise to a new tribalization of society, based on interests and on individual concerns, but because humanity is social by nature, individuals gravitate towards others with similar interests in lieu of space and family.

Research has shown that computer-mediated communication supports a range of instrumental, informational, social, and emotional exchanges in work and leisure contexts (e.g., Baym, 1995; 1997; Rice et aI., 1998; Wellman & Gulia, 1999; Quan-Haase & Wellman, 2004; 2005). There is little need to argue that the Internet is both a colossal waster of time and the biggest resource for information ever conceived by mankind. Fractorplace echoes the world of the internet—a user can walk around, see some sights, have a conversation, take in the news, etc. It allows for exploration, gathering of information and a platform to share it. True feedback loops may occur here. …A more complex form of play; the game which is constructed not upon the premise “This is play” but rather around the question “Is this play?” And this type of interaction also has it’s ritual forms… (Bateson)Fractorplace blurs the idea that research and exploration are boring, partially just through the medium, but also through the ways in which students can explore in the world. For example, they can learn about SlowFood through a hot dog stand!

Boundaries between play and production, work and leisure…are increasingly blurring. (Pearce) Metaplace provides an avatar for each user and through that avatar one experiences a secondary life that also is linked to our first lives through our minds’ connections. It looks as though a conversation is a game if a person takes part in it with one set of emotions or ideas—but not a game if his ideas or emotions are different. (Bateson)For students, it is important to blur this line because the work-learn paradigm in education is failing due to information and media saturation.

More Shots of Fractor World Playground

A space of mixed collaborations provides variety in play experience and flexibility in learning. Our findings suggest that lightweight collaborations can be enjoyable and enlightening and need not be negatively valued. (Nardi) Fractorplace provides these abilities to collaborate and to play—with enough customizable flexibility on behalf of the development team to create something worldly. The ability of some communication technologies to support simultaneous feed- back can signal listenership and turn-taking during the learning process. (McLaughlin) The ability to move around in Fractorplace allows for this asynchronous learning model to take root. The teacher and student are on a level playing field, thus allowing for true explorative and project based learning, with enough options to garner the attention of myriad groups.

The response process of asynchronous learning will encourage higher degree of response with media having higher social presence than with media having lower social presence during cross-cultural communication. (Chang/Lim 15) By setting up the form factors in Fractorplace, the Fractor community can help students to be active members in their society in ways that interest them, and it gives them the ability to research what actually interests them!

Polysynchronous environments are defined as virtual spaces that closely approximate real life environments. People..communicating polysynchronously not only talk synchronously (in real time), but also create temporal objects such as mail messages, newsgroup messages, as well as objects that can be experienced by others. This form of virtual reality has potential as a dynamic learning environment. (Robins)The ability to interact with each other, as well as with almost every object in Fractorplace provides a depth and a breadth of experience for the user, teacher and student alike.

E-Iearning has become an integral, valuable, and highly valued component of education, and standard-bearer for state-of-the-art learning and teaching as we advance into the 21 st century. (Harasim)

Welcome to Fractor’s World

Naea: how are you doing this fine monday evening

brooklynmg: i’m great….we just grilled out so i’m full and happy

brooklynmg: haha

Naea: haha

brooklynmg: how are you guys?

alswid: im jealous

alswid: haha

Naea: yea i’m starving, after this to dinner

JonnyPancakes: hey guys

brooklynmg: hey hey

Zmitm398: Hey everyone

Naea: hey

JonnyPancakes: how’s it going?

oly: hey

oly: ok – i added that newspaper

oly: it oges to the fractor website

brooklynmg: i saw that earlier today, i like that

Naea: oh cool

brooklynmg: how did you make it link?

JonnyPancakes: nice touch

Zmitm398: I was here ealier and saw the newspaper and dog. Love them both.

oly: when you build there are a lot of options

oly: oh yeah

alswid: is there a paperboy? haha

JonnyPancakes: did you guys see mky link for gamesforchange.com?

brooklynmg: i did, that is great

oly: you can go to my world on the chair across the wall too

brooklynmg: i think that can be really helpful

JonnyPancakes: yeah, it has a ton of social action games

JonnyPancakes: so, who are we missing?

brooklynmg: i think just stephanie

brooklynmg: but she mentioned she might be a little late

oly: man we need some chairs in the house

JonnyPancakes: haha

brooklynmg: i was just thinking that

alswid: haha for next time.

brooklynmg: we all look mad

brooklynmg: haha

JonnyPancakes: my knees are solid gold

Naea: lol

alswid: i know, with the hands on the hips

JonnyPancakes: i dunno if bending is possible

brooklynmg: you are looking great – golden man

oly: i took the short 5 minute tutorial and it really helped

alswid: ill have to check that out

Zmitm398: same here

Naea: yea i took that as well

brooklynmg: me too

Naea: lots of good info

JonnyPancakes: so let’s first decide on an overall feel for the world….

oly: and the more you are on the more coins you get

brooklynmg: ok

JonnyPancakes: start off simple

oly: you can buy cool lil gadgets

JonnyPancakes: what kind of place shall we make it

Zmitm398: I spent about an hour earlier on here building in my own world

JonnyPancakes: an indoor environment?

JonnyPancakes: and outdoor playground?

brooklynmg: i like outdoor playground

alswid: me too

brooklynmg: or neighborhood 

JonnyPancakes: me too

Zmitm398: me too

JonnyPancakes: enighborhood is hard i think

alswid: neighborhood-esq

oly: the cool thing is we can add other worlds to portal to

JonnyPancakes: but doable

JonnyPancakes: yeah, portaling is neceessary

JonnyPancakes: perhaps we can make an offshoot world for a few specific things

JonnyPancakes: like make this the main hub

oly: if you go to metaplace central there is a coiuple worlds that use that technique

Zmitm398: The playground should be our base, then we could add portals

JonnyPancakes: and make topic specific worlds

JonnyPancakes: yeah

JonnyPancakes: greed

brooklynmg: that would be good

JonnyPancakes: agreed

oly: exactly!

JonnyPancakes: ok

alswid: sounds good

oly: with links to the web

Zmitm398: yes

JonnyPancakes: so then we need to figure out 3 or 4 specific topc to cover

oly: and maybe video/photo

JonnyPancakes: absolutely

Zmitm398: and other learn zones

oly: exactly

JonnyPancakes: a library could be fun too

alswid: thats a good idea!

JonnyPancakes: interactive, of course

Naea: lol i was just about to say that

oly: i think we should split things up to make the work load manageable

Naea: they have them in second life

brooklynmg: did you see that library in 3d squared’s world?

JonnyPancakes: yes

Naea: virtual library

brooklynmg: i thought that was cool

Zmitm398: I agree

JonnyPancakes: we need to assign responsibilities

brooklynmg: ok

JonnyPancakes: so first…

oly: let’s split things up to make it easier to deal with

JonnyPancakes: we’ve decided on a playground for our hub

JonnyPancakes: that’s done

Zmitm398: so have we determined if more than one can be signed in to the world to build?

JonnyPancakes: now we need the portal worlds

oly: how many total are there if us?

oly: are htere of us

alswid: um, i can check the wiki

oly: typing sucks

JonnyPancakes: haha yeah

JonnyPancakes: this is a bit tedious

brooklynmg: i think we are missing stephanie, mark, michelle and ozan here

brooklynmg: so 10 of us?

Zmitm398: Mark is here

brooklynmg: i think?

JonnyPancakes: ok, so let’s brainstorm about portal worlds

brooklynmg: oh sorry

Zmitm398: thats me!

brooklynmg: you’re right

brooklynmg: haha

JonnyPancakes: nice dancin!

alswid: there are 11 people

oly: i think 2 per portal?

Zmitm398: sure

oly: and maybe all on the main?

brooklynmg: so what will the different portals be for?

oly: with one managing?

JonnyPancakes: yeah

brooklynmg: so i understnad where we’re going with this/

JonnyPancakes: this will be the main hub

JonnyPancakes: 1) library

JonnyPancakes: we need a few others

brooklynmg: cafeteria?

oly: well, aren’t we trying to match fractors ideas?

JonnyPancakes: good idea!

brooklynmg: bike shop?

JonnyPancakes: we can cover issues like starvation

JonnyPancakes: and things like that

brooklynmg: good call

JonnyPancakes: in the caf

oly: cafeteria = starvation

Zmitm398: nice

alswid: that is a really good idea.

alswid: kind of ironic

JonnyPancakes: and how to make asian chicken salads

alswid: but good.

alswid: haha

JonnyPancakes: delicious ones

brooklynmg: haha

Naea: hahahha

alswid: recipes love it!

JonnyPancakes: good

oly: bike shop = energy conservation

JonnyPancakes: so a caf with recipes

JonnyPancakes: yeah

JonnyPancakes: Great idea!

JonnyPancakes: so 

JonnyPancakes: 1) library

JonnyPancakes: 2) caf

JonnyPancakes: 3) bike shop

JonnyPancakes: nurses office

oly: yes!

brooklynmg: cool

oly: world health issues

JonnyPancakes: ok good!

alswid: dealing with heatlth issues

JonnyPancakes: so we have our portals

Zmitm398: That is good

brooklynmg: excellent

oly: YAY!

Naea: some sort of weather center for natural disasters?

JonnyPancakes: exactly

oly: good one

JonnyPancakes: ohhh

JonnyPancakes: good

oly: we can add more if we find it becomes easier

JonnyPancakes: what can we do for that?

JonnyPancakes: school paper?

oly: hmmm

brooklynmg: maybe that can be the “paper boy”

JonnyPancakes: newspaper office?

JonnyPancakes: yeah!

JonnyPancakes: good call

JonnyPancakes: perfect

alswid: newsstand?

oly: even better

brooklynmg: that works too

Naea: yea

JonnyPancakes: and then paperboy for that

JonnyPancakes: good

oly: it could be here

oly: and the newspapers could link out

Zmitm398: yes

JonnyPancakes: excactly

JonnyPancakes: great idea

alswid: that is awesome!

brooklynmg: i think 3d squared has a newstand we could use for reference

Zmitm398: Wow, great ideas for only being on here for 3 mins

oly: oh yeah

JonnyPancakes: they will all link out… the site i linked to has tons and tons of scoial issue games broken down into category

JonnyPancakes: we can post tons of links to it

oly: we can get things out of google marketplace or something like that

JonnyPancakes: and the games are kinda fun

oly: for objects

Naea: HAHAHHA

JonnyPancakes: yeah, we should def RSS feed some social issues

oly: i can’t stop dancing

JonnyPancakes: global

JonnyPancakes: hahaha

Naea: thats funny

oly: there i stopped!

JonnyPancakes: haha

alswid: okay, so do we want to volunteer for the portals?

oly: i wonder if we can twit outta here?

JonnyPancakes: hmmm

JonnyPancakes: maybe

JonnyPancakes: ok

JonnyPancakes: so wanna assign portals?

JonnyPancakes: or shall we work on them all

Naea: what are they again?

alswid: library

JonnyPancakes: it might be good to have everyone’s input in the portals though

alswid: cafeteria

brooklynmg: i agree

Zmitm398: can we do a rotation?

JonnyPancakes: nurses office

JonnyPancakes: newsstand

oly: maybe we can put them on our page and see since there are some of us missing

brooklynmg: plus, i think it will be better since some people are better at the building aspect

JonnyPancakes: ill post the portals on our blog when we’re done

oly: i like building

JonnyPancakes: yeah

oly: i spent 2 hours last night playing

JonnyPancakes: e all need to work on the portals

Zmitm398: initially assign, then rotate thru

brooklynmg: so that way if we’re all working and contributing to all of them, we’ll get more accomplished

JonnyPancakes: yeah, it’s fun

alswid: i haven’t tried it yet

Zmitm398: ok

alswid: okay, that works

JonnyPancakes: ok

JonnyPancakes: good…. so let’s spend this next week building this playground

JonnyPancakes: and work on the portals in the following weeks

Zmitm398: That sounds good

brooklynmg: so how are we each contributing to the playground?

alswid: okay, wait

JonnyPancakes: we need to make the hub impressive

oly: let’s make sure to have a sign up sheet so we know hwo is doing what

alswid: so is the newsstand going to be in this portal and link out?

JonnyPancakes: like a wiki I imagine

alswid: or is it seperate?

JonnyPancakes: we all add and make edits

JonnyPancakes: toward a common playground theme

JonnyPancakes: can we download additional objects?

Naea: ok

oly: yeah 

Naea: yea we can

JonnyPancakes: ok

JonnyPancakes: then we’ll need to do that too

JonnyPancakes: so let’s plan to have the playground done by Monday

JonnyPancakes: if we all work it won’t be too hard

oly: i really think we should have some type of assignment as we go so things are always getting done

Zmitm398: I plan to log in a little each day

brooklynmg: should we be working on the game aspect of this, too?

oly: i know the playground but how are we going to map that out?

JonnyPancakes: i just dont know how we can assign this part though

Zmitm398: That way I can see the changes and coninue to add

JonnyPancakes: everyone needs to do a little at a time and build and add off other people’s work

JonnyPancakes: like a wiki

brooklynmg: ok

JonnyPancakes: I think…

alswid: ok.

oly: ok

brooklynmg: another thing i think we should be doing is 

Naea: yea that sounds good

JonnyPancakes: i really cant think of a way to assign specific tasks in this

brooklynmg: researching some sites for vlolunteer/social action

JonnyPancakes: the game part i think comes last

brooklynmg: ok

JonnyPancakes: let’s build the hub world first

JonnyPancakes: then get the portals done the following week

alswid: kk

Zmitm398: yes the hub is first

JonnyPancakes: we can assign specific portals for that for each person

Zmitm398: this is our key starting place

JonnyPancakes: but we’ll talk about that next Monday when the hub is finished

oly: so playground then

oly: main hub

JonnyPancakes: I think so

JonnyPancakes: does that sound good?

Zmitm398: yes

alswid: sdounds good to me

oly: sure

brooklynmg: yep

Naea: ok

JonnyPancakes: ok cool…. so our goal for next Monday is getting this world done

Naea: oh no

JonnyPancakes: if we all do it it won’t be too hard

JonnyPancakes: haha who died?

Naea: what happened

oly: you can faint

JonnyPancakes: hahaha

brooklynmg: lol

Naea: hahaha

alswid: thought that woudl work..

JonnyPancakes: i wanna faint!

Naea: well thats weird

JonnyPancakes: haha who has a dog!?

oly: i think maybe i added that

oly: or stephanie

Zmitm398: I have a dog for real, not on here though

oly: can’t remember

ElleMcCarthy: does someone mind posting the entire convo when we’re done? i missed the first few minutes so im not if we’ve decided on the portals yet too.. or just the playground as hub

brooklynmg: so jon, do you want to post our convo & recap on the blog?

Naea: they have u ad one if you do the tutorial

alswid: i can do it

Zmitm398: No elle, you should be here on time… JK

brooklynmg: ok, thanks!

alswid: on the blog or the list serv?

alswid: r both?

ElleMcCarthy: hah sorry! i got stuck at hte pdf 2009 conference! my bad

JonnyPancakes: ok

JonnyPancakes: so you will post the convo

JonnyPancakes: I’ll recap the portals

alswid: yupp 

JonnyPancakes: if you guys get a minute

Zmitm398: I will do the email for everyone

Zmitm398: just copy and paste right?

JonnyPancakes: check out the games on that site

oly: will do

JonnyPancakes: they’re exactly in line with what we’re doing

brooklynmg: definitely

oly: cut and paste, yes

Zmitm398: thanks

JonnyPancakes: and strangely and depressingly fun

brooklynmg: haha

Naea: lol

JonnyPancakes: social action games are huge downers

JonnyPancakes: and im pretty sure u cant win

brooklynmg: yeah, the one i saw today regarding prop 8

oly: how to make them fun…

brooklynmg: and an elephant who can’t get water or something

brooklynmg: very depressing

JonnyPancakes: i was an south american farmer with my family dying because my crops were failing

JonnyPancakes: hahaha

JonnyPancakes: yeah

alswid: oh no

brooklynmg: ha

JonnyPancakes: thatr was the game

JonnyPancakes: haha

JonnyPancakes: but whatever

alswid: its very oregon trail…when everyone dies

alswid: haha

JonnyPancakes: yeah!

brooklynmg: totally

Naea: haha i’ll have to check it out

JonnyPancakes: it’s actually exactly like that

JonnyPancakes: funny you say so

JonnyPancakes: ok

JonnyPancakes: so action items:

JonnyPancakes: build home world

JonnyPancakes: check out gaming site

JonnyPancakes: and let’s get this Hub done by Monday

JonnyPancakes: sound good?

brooklynmg: yes

Naea: sounds good

alswid: yup

oly: did we ever figure out if only 1 person at a time can be building?

JonnyPancakes: hmmm

JonnyPancakes: I don’t know

brooklynmg: i’m willing to try logging on after this

brooklynmg: if someone else wants to also try

oly: i can too

JonnyPancakes: ok

Zmitm398: me too

JonnyPancakes: let us know tonight on the blog if you can

brooklynmg: i don’t think it will be a huge deal, though, since we’ll all probably log on at different times anyway

brooklynmg: ok

oly: true

brooklynmg: i will

JonnyPancakes: it would be cool if we could get some seesmic postings too

JonnyPancakes: i’d like to meet you guys

oly: i posted after last night’s explorations

alswid: okay we can make that another action point

alswid: for the weekend

alswid: *week

JonnyPancakes: ok, that would be great

JonnyPancakes: well…. good work tonight I think

alswid: absolutely

brooklynmg: yeah, i think we’re off to a good start

alswid: im gonna post the minutes to the blog.

Zmitm398: ok

brooklynmg: you guys are great

JonnyPancakes: agreed….

JonnyPancakes: ill see you all online,….

oly: oh, i think you can show a you tube clip from your avitar

Zmitm398: I’ll send the emal

alswid: ill see you all on seesmic! happy fourth!

brooklynmg: see you all next week!

Naea: ok bye everyone