Journal For Virtual Worlds Research (Texas Digital Library - TDL E-Journals)
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366 research outputs found
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The Game of Inventing: Ludic Heuristics, Ontological Play, and Pleasurable Research
No full textEveryone plays games, but very few of us have experience in creating games. Children are taught simple folk-games like Tag and The Floor is Lava but rarely graduate on into creating their own unique experiences through invented games. This proposal positions games as a culturally relevant medium that often suffers from players inability to understand the motivations and purpose behind a gam
A Teaching Method Based on Virtual Worlds and Mastery Learning
No full textThe evolution of virtual worlds in education has provided the creation of new pedagogical alternatives. In the present study, we explore this potential, integrating the Bloo
Dreaming the Virtual: How Lucid Dream Practice Can Inform VR Development
No full textUsing the grounded theory method (GTM), this article proposes a
Gaming the Performance: Massively Multiplayer Online Games and Performance Outcomes in English and Business Courses
No full textThe push for technology integration in classrooms calls for examinations of available options, particularly those that have not yet been used to their full potential for various reasons. One such technology is digital commercial games which, though designed for entertainment, may have potential educational benefits. Although there have been several discussions in the literature about the possibilities of such commercial video games as educational assets, there persists a gap in our understanding of the value of such games in the context of Higher Education. This gap is particularly visible when it comes to studies on how commercial games may affect performance outcomes in multiple disciplines. Thus, this study examined Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs), one genre of commercial games, in two disciplines, to discover how, and if, they improved learner performances. This information could help facilitate technology integration in new and interesting ways for institutions, instructors, and instructional designers. Using a True Experimental design that examined the performance scores of 214 students in English and Business courses, the effect of using MMOGs on participation scores was analyzed from multiple statistical perspectives. The findings strongly suggest that using MMOGs helped experimental groups to perform better. Additionally, there are strong indications that game related content like game wikis, blogs, game site information, and game video tutorials was also instrumental in improved performance, irrespective of active gameplay or not. This is significant as it may provide easier-to-integrate options for MMOGs in the curriculum. Practitioner, theoretical and research implications are also discussed
Editorial
No full textAssembled 2018 Part Two includes, once again, five remarkable studies demonstrating rigor over a vast variety of themes tethered to Virtual World use. The five articles highlight new findings and pave the way for future research
Virtual Parent-Child Relationships: A Case Study
No full textStudies on parenting and online gaming abound, most of this literature considering the role of parents in educating their children about online safety, maintaining boundaries and limiting time spent online. Embedded within these inquiries is often the assumption that parents live with their children and must balance the physical-virtual divide. Relatively little research has considered the role of the virtual in the lives of parents who do not live with their children. In this inquiry, I present a narrative-ethnographic account of my experiences as a father living apart from my six-year-old son, communicating daily through various online games. I draw on my own experiences over the past three years, as well as formal and informal interviews with my son. I consider how our relationship has evolved in relation to virtual constructs including spaces, characters, and stories, and the extension of the virtual worlds we inhabit into our face-to-face conversations, play, and subjective individual and collective constructions of the reality of our relationship. Ultimately, I propose broader implications for the study of virtual worlds and relationships, as well as an expansion of the understanding of parenting in a digital age, where gaming is not always a distraction from familial engagement but can in fact integrate with family life
Editorial
No full textThis issue, themed on Pedagogy and Learning, aims to document both the present and emerging state-of-the-art, covering the adoption, design, enaction, scaling and translation of immersive and/or mixed-reality environments for learning, and in other contexts of education.This commemorative issue stands on the shoulders of those who explored the frontiers and came before and is dedicated to the memory and work of the late Leslie Jarmon
Avatar Sex
No full textThe simulation of sex within social virtual worlds such as Second Life, distinct from any accompanying emotional intimacy which may exist between the avatars (via their operators in the actual world), is generally achieved by means of a pre-scripted animation in which two (or more) avatars participate, not unlike if the operators had chosen to have avatars participate in a pre-scripted animation of them dancing together.Wardle (2015) used the Lacanian terminology of the Symbolic, Imaginary and Real to create a framework to typify the behavior and interaction of avatars; Symbolic avatars who behave in accordance with a pre-defined role, Imaginary avatars which serve as persona masks for the operator and Real avatars in which the complex mutually interactive relationship between operator and avatar leads to the emergence of an autonomous symbiotic unit.This essay applies this terminology to examine the factors which have led to the simulation of sex becoming such a major element of avatar behavior within social virtual worlds such as Second Life
Editorial
No full textThis issue includes five exciting research studies covering a broad and diverse array of topic areas but still focuses on the enhancement of knowledge in the realm of Virtual Worlds. In essence, the name of the issu
Barbarians at the Imperium Gates: Organizational Culture and Change in EVE Online
No full textThis article looks at organizational culture and identity of different organisations in EVE Online, using a combination of critical historical and ethnographic approaches. We argue that it is helpful to understand major organizations in EVE as analogous to early polities, in terms of the ways in which claims to leadership and power are demonstrated (for example through the writing of history). Yet, as we show, these organizations have strong cultures which demonstrate resilience and a resistance to top-down cultural change, meaning that the successful implementation of such change is governed by rank-and-file members rather than their leadership. We propose that the cultural (rather than political or social) nature of this resilience is centrally important in understanding how organizations in EVE function. This unity of practices and understanding allows EV