https://www.gather.town/education
Gather.town is a freemium (free for <25 concurrent users) platform for virtual experiences. The UI is reminiscent of the early days of Pokemon (Gameboy Colour), and the UX is just about as mobile friendly.
Personally, I feel this is a great way for classrooms and teams to collaborate while learning remotely, particularly when turning on cameras feels a bit awkward. The class can interact in ways that mimic physical interactions, creating a fun but intimate learning environment. The instructor has the ability to create digital spaces as well as artifacts (just about any kind of furniture you can imagine).
I first encountered this tool in a Language Arts middle school class. The teacher handed out tablets to each student, and had them create personalized avatar for this virtual world. Upon entering the digital classroom, one could walk around to find a list of assignments, Google forms for quizzes, an announcement board, and a place to submit homework. There was also a living room for relaxing and interacting with other students.
At first, I wondered how this was more efficient/effective than just uploading all the course content on a regular website, but the effect was quite evident among the middle schoolers (at least for the first class). Do you have any personal experience with such “metaverse” technologies? How do you think this ETEC 523 class would differ if it was hosted on gather.town mobile?
Hi Aaron. Gather.town is not something I was familiar with at all. It definitely reminds me of those Pokemon days on my original Gameboy! I imagine this would be such a fun way for students to interact. I think it could have made a really big difference in how some students interacted with each other during the lockdowns. I think a part of me is really intrigued because interacting in a virtual world like this seems so new and fun. I wonder if, when the novelty wears off, I would find that this is a long-term solution for increasing student participation, or if interests wane after a while?