University of Southern California

Under the leadership of Douglas Thomas, Associate Professor at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Yasmin Kafai, Professor of Learning Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania, Tweens and Reproductive Health in Virtual Worlds is an effort to gain insights on how tweens, an understudied but growing group of online players, approach the issues of sexuality within a virtual world. This project is made possible with support from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

This study will examine the sexual content and related behaviors in tween conversations in a virtual world called Whyville.net, which is populated by over 2 million registered players between ages 10-16 – thus a prime audience for our developmental topic. Access to Whyville is free and players can spend time participating in science activities, creating their own avatars and socializing with others through multi-player games, chat spaces, newspaper articles, email, trading (Kafai & Giang, 2008). 

Anne Balsamo, is engaged in a one-year exploration of informal learning environments. Research will look to answer questions about how informal learning environments might change to better serve young people, both those who are already engaged with new digital media, and those who are not yet.

To explore this topic, Anne will consider:

• the role of tinkering in the learning process
• the creation of evocative learning objects that meld the physical and the digital
• the cultivation of the technological imagination as a 21st century literacy

This project, led by Douglas Thomas,  and made possible with a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundaiton, is an effort to better understand what role philanthropic organizations might play in the context of virtual worlds. As virtual worlds grow in size and scope so do the opportunities for engagement with the players who visit them, the communities they build, and the spaces they inhabit. In order to access the ways in which foundations might be integrated into virtual worlds, we ask the following three questions to help us understand the purpose of philanthropy in virtual worlds:

• How do we define “public good” in the context of virtual worlds?
• How do we use the capabilities of virtual worlds to further the goals of foundations?
• How do you build “real world” connections between physical and virtual spaces?

Each of these questions forms the basis for groups of projects that we believe will help define what virtual communities in these worlds look like, how foundations might build communities of interest around key topics, and how activities in virtual worlds might contribute back to communities with which they are connected. In what follows, we will expand on these basic questions to envision how we might understand, utilize, and connect virtual worlds to the goals of philanthropic organizations.

“We live in a world that is becoming more networked every day, and the internet has grown into an essential medium for communication, socialization, and creative expression. Virtual worlds like Second Life represent the future of human interaction in a globally networked world,” -Second Life: The Official Guide

This journal, edited by Douglas Thomas, is an international journal publishing innovative theoretical and empirical research about games and culture within the context of interactive media. The journal's scope includes the socio-cultural, political, and economic dimensions of gaming from a wide variety of perspectives, including textual analysis; political economy; cultural studies; ethnography; critical race studies; gender studies; media studies; public policy; international relations; and communication studies.

Modern Prometheus is a game designed to teach students about issues of science, technology and ethics through experiential learning.

Situated within the context of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Modern Prometheus encourages learning about ethics, particularly as they relate to science and technology, by immersing students in an imaginative play space and requiring them to make choices that affect game play. By making ethics about the choices they make and the effects of those choices, rather than prescriptive rules for conduct or behaviors, students can better understand the complexities of ethical judgment and better evaluate their decisions and how their decisions affect others.