This paper describes the Virtual Academy educational model. Readers are invited to comment on the ideas herein. Other papers available from the authors describe the technology, specific lesson modules being developed, and evaluation plans.

OUTLINE

1. The Didactic Model of the Virtual Academy

A Social Context for Propagating Constructionism

The "Food Chain" of the Virtual Academy

Where to Begin?

2. Thinking about Tools and Methods

The DITSO Model of the Software Life Cycle

Design: Brainstorming, Prioritization, Task Allocation

Implementation: Bringing Tools and Energy Together

Testing and Improvement: Pilot Trials and Version 0

Support: Passing the Torch to Cast Members

Observation and Oversight

The Role of the Teacher

Ongoing Support

3. Research Issues concerning Learning in MUSEs

Long and Short Term Goals

Theory

Text and Graphics in MUSEs

4. Potential Dangers and Payoffs of Multimedia MUSEs

5. Summary

1. The Didactic Model of the Virtual Academy

The teaching model of the Virtual Academy is a simple one, resembling the operation of the Girl Scouts or Boy Scouts. Under the leadership of teachers and adult volunteers, students learn how to construct virtual worlds that teach specific (teacher-chosen) concepts to other students. The students themselves have a large amount of control over the kinds of situations and simulations that are constructed to convey these concepts. This gives the students an ownership stake in the work, and makes it possible to "situate" their learning in real apprentice-ship contexts (Brown 89; CTG 90)

When a new school first joins the ExploreNet, groups of students enter a virtual world as "guests" . They might be visiting virtual Williamsburg, ancient Egypt, or the human circulatory system. They encounter other live human beings ("cast members") who play roles needed to make the simulation effective. After gaining experience as guests, students are promoted to cast members. They are responsible for learning the appropriate facts and behaviors about the world they are simulating. Ultimately they are invited to become "world builders" - that is, to script and create new worlds in which other kids, in turn, play the roles of guest and cast member.

A Social Context for Propagating Constructionism.

Constructionism is a theory of learning which is based on the idea of students building physical, working systems that embody their understandings of relationships (Harel 91.) The idealism of the paradigm has been attacked as difficult to replicate or sustain(Holden 89); there seems to be a strong dependence on unique charismatic teachers and advocates for change.

The approach we believe to be most fruiful is to create a new social mechanism whereby the necessary teaching and mentoring is largely provided by peers. The Coalition of Essential Schools is an example of a highly successful school-change movement based on this principle (Sizer 92.) Our plan uses networked simulation as a key element in achieving this goal.

If the rare charismatic teacher is a kind of 'catalyst', then success will hinge on finding a mechanism whereby the catalytic effect is multiplied. These creative leaders must be identified and placed in positions of high visibility - but not transformed from teachers into professors of education. We don't need the Peter Principle at work here. How, then, do we put super-teachers and their students in a role of catalysts for large bodies of other teachers and students?

The "Food Chain" of the Virtual Academy

The following Figure 1 describes in an idealized fashion how traditional curricula are developed and applied, and how feedback flows to the makers. The two principal weaknesses with this model are that kids are only exposed to the end product - a "lesson module", and that feedback is tenuous and occasional. Teachers only meaningfully criticize lesson designers' work when they purchase new curricular products, and even this opportunity is often exercised by the State or County rather than the teachers or students.

Figure 1: Traditional Curricular Design and Deployment

By contrast, the model of the Virtual Academy uses students as intimate partners in delivering instruction, constructing virtual worlds within which to dramatize lessons, and in some cases even creating the tools to build the virtual worlds. Please see Figure 2.

Figure 2: The Virtual Academy with Living Feedback

Students move from the role of "guests" to the roles of members of a dramatic learning team. They must master the ideas of a subject because they will be performing as Romans, Spartans, prop managers, and evaluators of their own performances. They know what works and what doesn't, because they were recently guests. They will continue to be guests in other worlds, built and operated by other students around the world, even as they become more skilled at building and operating their own showcase worlds.

The cybernetics of this model are far superior to the traditional developmental model. Feedback is now carried, not in the form of occasional purchase orders, but in the form of daily interactions between students of various ages and their teachers. Their own experiences as guests inform their decisions as dramatists; their dramatic experiences guide their actions as world builders.

Is this an ambitious scheme? Of course! But we are actively developing the components of the Virtual Academy today, in Florida and at other affiliated sites.

Where To Begin?

There is a kind of a "bootstrapping" problem with the VA model. If everyone begins as a guest, who are the first cast members? Who are the first world builders? In 1995 we are providing these starting points by training university and high school students; by providing a few worlds built by the original design team; and by leading the first guests through the worlds ourselves.

The following section discusses the VA from a different perspective than the food chain model. Instead of first considering guests, we begin with the notion of a team of students ready to construct a world, and walk through the process. At the conclusion of section 2 we reflect again on how the VA probably will evolve into being.

2. Thinking about Tools and Methods

When closely examined, the Virtual Academy is in essence a software development organization. An unusual feature is the the VA provides both the software and its users, and that the two groups are thoroughly mixed. Nevertheless, analogies with professional software development environments are highly relevant. We have created a model for the process which resembles many software life cycle models used in the commercial sector.

The DITSO Model of the Software Life Cycle

We identify five stages of the cycle. A brief section about each follows, in which we describe the kinds of teaching, learning and tools that will be used.

* Design: Brainstorming, Prioritization, Task Allocation

* Implementation: Bringing Tools and Energy Together

* Testing and Improvement: Pilot Trials and Version 0

* Support: Passing the Torch to Cast Members

* Observation and Outreach: What Have We Done?

Design: Brainstorming, Prioritization, Task Allocation.

The basic model of the Virtual Academy is bottom-up: a teacher and her students decide to build a world or a collection of worlds about some subject. The VA might actually maintain public lists of suggested topics. Individual schools could post suggestions and requests for new worlds to such a list.

A Scenario: The Winter Park Finn Team. For the sake of discussion, let's assume that a team of four students in Mrs. Wilson's sixth grade English class at Winter Park Middle School decides to construct part of Huck Finn's world. They select as their leader Andy Clark.

The Winter Park Finn Team (WPFT) has never built an ExploreNet World ("Xworld") before, and so they need help. They decide to make use of VA Outreach (described later in this section). They read VA Outreach's Home Page and discover a list of experienced schools which invite guests to join in their projects. Jane Goodman, a parent of one of the WPFT students, volunteers to assist.

Following a link from that list, they discover the Gumby School's eighth grade history class. At Gumby, a group of students is building Johnny Tremaine's Universe; that sounds interesting and relevant. WPFT quickly browses the Web pages which show this universe's scenes and essential structure as built to date, and then sends e-mail to the Gumby students requesting a link-up. Gumby replies that they're meeting next Wednesday at 10 AM; that they use Lotus Notes and AudioPath (a hypothetical free InterNet based shared sound application); andprovide the address of the Lotus Notes Server. WPFT replies that they accept the invitation.

From the Home Page at VA Outreach, WPFT has learned that the basic rule for a first visit to an ongoing design team is "watch and learn." The hosts will invite your participation when they are ready. On Wednesday morning, the connections are put into place. The WPFT team can hear the Gumby team's mentor Mr. Whittaker, a retired painter. They see a small photograph of Mr. Whittaker and a "group portrait" of the Gumby team in one corner of the screen. The center of the screen is occupied by a virtual whiteboard.

Ms. Goodman is in the classroom with the WPFT students, gathered around a computer in the back of the room. The five are wearing lightweight earphones with built-in microphones, so they can hear and participate in the discussion without the "speakerphone" reverbrating background noise of the rest of the class. AudioPath is an "audio push to talk" system. When a student starts to talk, if nobody else is talking, they get the channel and their screen image is highlighted to tell everyone who's speaking. If you don't see tyour own screen image highlighted, someone else is speaking (and you can hear the other person in their earphones) so you wait for your turn to speak.

The Gumby team is similarly equipped, though Mr. Whittaker is operating from his home computer. The Gumby team of three students is using three computers in the classroom.

Figure 3: Gumby Team Observed by Winter Park Team

Selena Chen leads the discussion at Gumby. She begins by putting up on the whiteboard a 'rubric' (work plan) that has helped in the past:

- Story or subject

- Educational theme

- Structure and planning

- Interactivity and Responsibility

- Casting and Guest-Tasking

- Assignments:

Implementation

Testing

Support

Story. She quickly sketches an idea (suggested by her teacher) for a world that represents an early part of Johnny Tremaine's story. In this chapter of the book, his hand is badly burned due to a crucible that was deliberately cracked by a jealous fellow silversmith apprentice. The students agree that this part of the book is suitably dramatic.

Theme. Mr. Whittaker asks the group to express the message they expect this world to convey, and suggests that the students list several possible morals or lessons to be learned. In a shared text window on the whiteboard, appear a number of ideas as the Gumby students think them up and type them into their computers. Selena invites the WPFT students to contribute ideas too, but at this point they are still too shy.

"Revenge may be more permanent than you planned."

"Pride and arrogance lead to pain."

"Always check your tools."

"Don't call your friends fatty."

Selena then asks the group for their opinions. They choose "pride and arrogance" as the main theme. She then asks for an expanded list of arrogant things that Johnny did in the book. Up come

"Bragged about how good his silverware was."

"Didn't think about Benny's feelings."

"Grabbed the best sleeping space for himself."

Structure. Selena brings up a chart that is often used in Xworld brainstorming.

Figure 4: Interactivity and Responsibility

She asks Henry Nelson to explain the chart to the WPFT guests. Henry explains that guests are usually taken through a series of worlds to learn how ExploreNet works, and how a particular universe works. First you give them increasing amounts of interactivity - that is, you let them control more and more aspects of the world. He points at successive locations and draws arrows as he talks; everyone can see his actions on the virtual whiteboard.

Figure 5: Henry Marks up the Chart

Guests might start in a Hazard World, where they search for food while avoiding harm. Such a world teaches basic ideas about movement and controlling one's own state (survival), and familiarizes the visitor with the style, historical period etc. of the universe being built.

At a slightly higher level of responsibility but less interactive freedom is a Drama in which the guest plays a bit part. Here the guest needs to react properly, but is not really allowed to change the story line. Such dramas are intended to give the guest a taste of team-work, and to deliver actual story information. Cast members of course have the main responsibility here.

Guests then usually move to a Quest, in which more goal-oriented behavior is necessary. Not only must you survive, but you must move toward a goal and overcome obstacles (often provided by cast members). Quests are like railroads; there is a hidden "right track" of ordered events, along which you proceed. You have at most a limited amount of control over the world's state. King's Quest V exemplifies this kind of world in the non-shared domain.

Beyond Quests are open Exploratory Worlds, in which you still have an overall goal, but you have very little constraint or guidance as to what comes next. The number of things you can try is very large. A well-managed Dungeons and Dragons game, or the Myst computer game, has this kind of high responsibility level.

Finally, the most interactive kind of experience is the construction of parts of worlds or whole worlds. World builders progress from the guided construction of objects or worlds someone else designed, through the design of parts of objects and worlds, up to the design of whole worlds.

Selena suggests that this early portion of Tremaine's story should be handled as a drama with bit parts for the guests. The group agrees. They then decide that the principal roles of Benny, Johnny and Mr. Watterson are cast member roles, and the three sisters are bit parts for guests.

Assignments. The planning outline under Assignments expands to list a number of tasks to be pursued in the next month.

Implementation

- finding similar worlds (Dramas) and visiting them

- writing a script, based on other worlds' scripts

- developing the artwork and gathering clip-art

Testing and Integration

- trying out the world together

- trying the world on friendly guests; fixing problems

- offering the world to VA Oversight

Support

- budgeting time for supporting guests who visit.

- producing the Hand-Off Report for others.

- providing consultation to later adopters.

These activities, when carried out, are actually discussed in the next section. Here during design, the students simply look ahead and plan., Each selects one of the Implementation tasks. Selena likes net-crawling so she volunteers to find other drama worlds. Henry likes to write scripts, and Janaatha agrees to try to draw scenes and find objects. Selena invites the WPFT guests to come back during the Testing phase as "friendly guests" and they readily agree.

She then asks for questions. The push-to-talk audio is clear, and the conversation is made easier to follow because the speaker's photo on the screen is highlighted when that person is speaking.

"How did you learn to do all this?" Andy asks.

"We worked with University High School students in Florida." Selena replies. "I job-shadowed Rami Kuttaineh in his first scripting job. Do you want to go with me net-cruising for Drama ideas?"

"Sure! How do we do that?"

"Here, I'll give you the URL for Ubique. That's a free Web client that lets people go surfing together. Let's get together today at 4 PM. Henry, would you like to invite one of the WPFT folks to brainstorm on the Tremaine script with you?"

"Well, OK. Let me get a first draft together first. Who wants to read it for me on Thursday?" Several WPFT students agree to work with Henry on the script.

The brainstorming session is finished, and the Tremain Burned Hand World construction project is underway. WPFT agrees among themselves that world-designing seems like something they could do.

Implementation: Bringing Tools and Energy Together

Once the ExploreNet world has been designed, the script is constructed using a Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) editor. At this point there are no graphics in the world's description. After Henry and the WPFT students discuss the script and rearrange it, Henry invites Janaatha to provide some artwork. He then adds pointers to the script.

His WPFT apprentices observe how he does each operation, using the "Watch Me" feature of a software tool called PCanywhere. Henry assists them in learning how it's done. He doesn't mind the extra effort; he knows he'll only have to train two groups of apprentices. (In fact he enjoys showing off his skills and may volunteer to teach more groups.) They in turn will have two other groups of apprentices to train, and so on. But first they need to build many worlds, so they will know what they're doing.

When the world script HTML is ready for testing, Henry clicks a button in the VA Tools home page, and the Tremain Burned Hand World Script is translated into an ExploreNet file structure. Henry then hops into the world, using his own computer as a stand-alone system, and checks to see if things behave as they should.

Testing and Improvement: Pilot Trials and Version 0

Henry, Janaatha and Selena spend a day (actually one class period) testing their world and making changes to it. They then meet the WPFT team in another conference chat, and explain that "real" guests would know very little about the story. They would simply be told that they are three daughters of the old silversmith; that they should do what their mother tells them to do. The WPFT person playing Anna, the youngest sister, is told in a private ("whisper") transmission some special facts about her role that the other guests don't know.

When the Gumby team feels the world is ready for visitors, they clean up their script and post it as part of their own home page. They then send e-mail to VA Oversight. which posts a pointer to Gumby's home page. This is an invitation to other schools to visit Gumby's Home Page, and to schedule interactive sessions with the Tremain World. The notice says that the world is still being tested, and that after ten or twelve classes have visited it as test subjects, Gumby School will make the world itself available for use.

WPFT, which has been observing this process, volunteers to provide some cast members during these trials. A mixture of Gumby and Winter Park students (some of who are not actually WPFT members, but friends of theirs) "staff" the Tremain world during its shakedown cruise. The Gumby team modifies the world slightly as flaws are found. One team member (Janaatha) has gotten very interested in the Revolutionary War period and has decided to organize other student teams to build a whole series of Tremain worlds.

Support: Passing the Torch to Cast Members

When the Gumby team feels that they have optimized the Tremain Burned Hand world, they send VA Oversight a notice that the world is now available for general use. They also post a short "Advice to Cast Members" document on their home page. This document conveys the special techniques learned during the cast members' repeated presentations of this world, to future cast members.

As time goes on, there are hundreds of postings at VA Oversight. A school studying a particular subject can go through indices, find a pointer to a world appropriate to their subject, and borrow or copy the whole world. They can then improve or extend the world, or simply provide their own cast members and act out the world.

Pipeline Model. If a class wishes to use a particular world but no experienced cast members are available, one group of four to six students reads the Advice to Cast Members. They then present the world to a second group of their classmates. These guests, having been through the segment, in turn become cast members for the next group of fellow students. Thus each team except the first and last, sees the experience twice: once as guest, once as cast.

Observation and Oversight

The VA Oversight function is a lightweight operation. It consists of two principal functions:

1) Directory of Resources

2) Storage Server

The Directory of Resources is a Web structure with indexing that helps learners find worlds that are relevant to a particular subject. Schools that have fulltime access to the Internet can maintain their own Home Pages, and schools wanting to use others' work can access it directly.

For schools without fulltime Internet access (perhaps they're dialing in), the VA Oversight system provides a place to install their own Home Pages. Since only downloading (no simulation) takes place there, this is not a computationally intensive activity.

Oversight and Quality Control. Since only the Oversight team can control this directory's contents, some quality control is possible. The HTML "source code" for ExploreNet worlds is examined for improper material (students will try to sneak unacceptable stuff into the system!). Schools' own postings, however, will have to be monitored by their own teachers. Only when they are submitted to Oversight do we become aware of them.

Oversight will be operated by a volunteer team of retirees, of which we have an abundance. We also expect assistance from the International Baccalaureate Program, which has a substantial service requirement for all its graduates.

Observation. The "commons" provided by Oversight allows observation of trends, a search for candidates for "Best of Category" awards on a periodic basis. It also provides a forum for feedback about the software or the overall process.

The Role of the Teacher

Teachers will of course learn along with their students; but the principal role of the teacher will be to participate in the setting of goals and the evaluation of results. If students have specific requirements to learn about revolutionary-era America, then the Johnny Tremain "virtual field trip" is just one more resource at the teacher's disposal.

Teachers should no more have to learn the details of how to build worlds, than they know how to write textbooks (or bind them!) Their students will have access to mentors within the VA structure - cast members, experienced world builders, senior citizen mentors. The teacher is a coach and a goal-setter.

The teacher needs to know how to FIND information, and thus needs to know the overall architecture of the Virtual Academy - but doesn't need to know everything. In fact it's better if s/he is honestly ignorant on some matters, and relies on the students to solve these problems. With the weight of the class on their shoulders, they will be much more serious about the work. And with the Virtual Academy, there's always someone to ask for help.

Ongoing Support

Who pays? Some have suggested that we require schools to pay a small sum to support the cost of the central resource. We are opposed to this idea. We think that the Internet's basic social model is built around freely shareable tools and information, and that this - at last! - is a sustainable and extensible model for technology in education. We know from much experience that commercial publication is generally inadequate to get ideas widely tried and rapidly improved.

We intend to avoid any cash cost to schools beyond the provision of their own equipment and Internet access, if we can. This will require modest fund raising for the central functionality. If Oversight becomes too burdensome for a single PC or a small cluster to support, then it may have to be decentralized and supported in "nooks and crannies" of willing school or university systems' computing environments.

Research and development is of course a different story, and will require substantial fund raising. But we've all done that.

3. Research Issues concerning Learning in MUSEs

Short term goals. In the short term, our objective is to conduct and publish credible research that shines light into one or two crucial corners of the search-space. We therefore divide our quest for research questions into a near-term (1995) and a long-term phase.

In the near term, we are conducting a pilot experiment in the spring of 1995 that will set the stage for further work, and a possible follow-up study in the summer and fall of 1995. The spring experiments, at Hungerford Elementary School in Eatonville, FL, will help to establish the basic method of managing the cast member/guest relationship.

The summer/fall studies involve two middle schools are intended to set in motion the tripartite food-chain model with student world builders. Maitland Middle School (in suburban Orlando) has an advanced parent/teacher technology initiative called EXTRA STEPS, over 250 486-model PCs for 1000 students. Coral Springs Middle School (Coral Springs, FL - close to Miami) is Florida's flagship Coalition school but has relatively little technology. So the two schools have much to teach each other.

During the fall semester we also expect to actively involve Florida's retired citizens for the first time, as mentors in the world building process.

Long Term Goals. At the end of calendar 1995, we expect to know enough from the experiments with Hungerford, Maitland and Coral Springs, to describe the overall method and its shortcomings and hazards. We will have constructed ExploreNet 4 and tested it, with a transition from version 3 to 4 sometime during the fall semester.

In 1996 we expect to offer the Academy to the public as a general concept; to make all the software tools we have created generally available; and to select three to six target schools for intensive study and support. These schools will probably be particular schools targeted because of their movement toward Coalition principles, and study will be focused on the issue of teacher-to-teacher communication "over the heads of" actively working teams of students.

Theory. A popular taxonomy (Gagné 92) divides learning into five categories:

1. Intellectual skills (e. g. algebraic manipulation)

2. Cognitive strategies (e. g. mental imaging for mnemonic purposes)

3. Verbal or factual information - e. g. spelling, state capitals, history

4. Motor skills - e. g. typing, basketball, driving a car

5. Attitudes - e. g. an interest in reading

How to choose a domain for our research? On the basis of personal experience with schoolchildren, categories 2 and 5 are of critical importance to success, are generally poorly taught in America's schools. However, these competencies are usually harder to teach and to accurately measure than 1, 3 and 4.

In the long run, we hope to conduct experiments targeted at concerning cognitive strategies, and attitudes. In the 1995 spring semester, however, we are constrained to stick with easily measured variables like skills and knowledge (1 and 3). We will measure students' ability to recount (in writing) the details of a story after having "acted" it, versus having read it. We will also measure students' ability to recognize and understand the words they encountered while playing the game.

What independent variables do we use? Well, the central premises of the Virtual Communities project concern the utility of various forms of 'self' and of peer support in multi-user learning. The medium itself suggests that graphics and simulation are also central concerns. Thus, it would make sense to set up some subset of the following possible treatments of a given subject:

Self (the student) represented or not

Virtual space (with props) represented or not

Graphics used or not

Single students per computer vs. multiple students per computer

Multi-grade level teams vs. single-grade level teams

Examining the entire space of 32 treatments would prove far too arduous for the scope of our current pilot project. Investigating the constructionist model of having students both build and populate their own worlds is very important but not feasible in the short run (spring '95) because the means of producing ExploreNet worlds are still too difficult to use.

Ultimately, we decided to test the effectiveness of the ExploreNet experience at eliciting descriptive writing from students and its effectivness at teaching certain vocabulary words. There will be two main treatments: ExploreNet and traditional classroom instruction. There will be two independent variables within the ExploreNet treatment: mixed-age mentoring vs. same-age mentoring, and single vs. shared computers.

Text and Graphics in MUSEs. The advocates of textual muses cite two virtues of text-dependence: ease of world-building, and the encouragement of reading and writing. Some people feel that the basic nature of a graphical MUSE would discourage people from attempting to create their own world, and that if they did try, their graphical skills would not be up to the task. Furthermore, any such efforts would necessarily detract from the time spent writing and reading.

ExploreNet's instructional design, at least in the constructionist portion of the plan, provides a way around this dilemma. Think of using a textual MUSE-space as a first-draft, a prototype or a scaffolding. Students would build such a domain and play-test it. Then they, or perhaps other students, would use the written description as a specification and build a graphical space to correspond (or extend) the original ideas. Thus, there would be as much reading and writing going on as ever, but an additional layer of graphical activity would also take place.

In the opposite sense, a graphical MUSE could be the starting place for an assignment to write textual descriptions of what you see. (This direction seems like a tougher "sell" than the natural one of using written specifications to direct artwork.)

Several MUDministrators and developers have indicated that textual MUDs are quite difficult for students below fourth grade to use. Graphical MUDs may prove useful in the K-5 age range for this reason. However we feel that language arts, manifested as reading and writing must remain very important activities.

Potential Dangers of MUSEs

Television Anxiety. Another concern that has been expressed is the idea that grapics and sound are the enemy of collected, rational thought. "Just look at television!" However, the proper challenge might instead be "Look at Voyage of the MIMI." This pioneering general-science curriculum uses an artfully constructed story line, presented in video form, to motivate a rich collection of encounters and experiments with essential scientific ideas.

Our kids are already immersed in a multimedia data-storm. Viscerally it seems that we ought to be empowering them to make some storms of their own, to immunize them against the slick but centrally-produced images that exemplify most television. To do this, we have to create convivial graphical, auditory AND textual environments, and have the kids do important work in these spaces.

Payoffs. What are the potential payoffs for using multimedia MUSEs? There are several. First: textual MUSEs are inherently more user-friendly for word-oriented students than for visually or kinesthetically-oriented ones. Anecdotally at least, disadvantaged students often have difficulties keeping up with others from families with rich bases of experience (e. g. parents who read to them, or who read for their own pleasure.) Provision of alternate means of expression might keep these students engaged in the learning process.

Second: in the ExploreNet constructionist paradigm, the major product of students' work is a collection of virtual worlds intended as learning environments for younger students. No one would argue that textbooks should not contain pictures, and it seems equally implausible to insist that graphics should not be used in interactive learning. However, the investigation of when text-only MUSES are superior to multimedia MUSEs for non-constructing learners (e. g. those taking "virtual field trips", rather than actively building or acting in the world) is a proper subject of research.

Bottom Line: Most of the objections to multimedia MUSEs actually arise from the difficulty in constructing them with today's tools. There may indeed be valid educational reasons to restrict world-building or exploratory activity to pure text on some occasions, but until we have truly user-friendly multimedia MUSEs, we won't be able to find out.

5. Summary

The Virtual Academy is gradually becoming a reality in 1995. After developing ExploreNet software from 1990 through 1994, we are beginning to test the educational model, and to extend the notion of world building with actual experience. The tools are still rudimentary compared to what they should be. We are actively incorporating commercial tools whenever possible.

The VA's goal is not to build an integrated suite of software (e. g. CSILE; Scardamalia 92) that solves all the problems of networked collaboration with embedded role-playing. Someday we may attempt such a project. For now our intention is to build a flexible distributed testbed, to involve other learners and researchers with the concept and tool-set as swiftly as possible, and to get our young collaborators busy colonizing cyberspace.

We expect to be astonished.

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