Modeling Reality With Virtual Worlds

The topic of virtual worlds is very interesting because it's partially developed and growing yet is still relatively young and unknown. The directions in which we can take virtual reality are basically endless. In many ways this is both exciting and scary. Just like everything else and just like social networking, virtual worlds have benefits and drawbacks. As discussed by Dawley and Dede, virtual worlds can be of great benefit for educational purposes. They offer situated learning through immersive technologies to create learning situations that often contain a lot of features that real-life learning situations do not. For example, virtual worlds can be used for role playing. People can "go back in time" to learn history as if they were actually at the event.

A specific con of virtual worlds that I had not known prior to the reading, is the concern that they can be used as a place to launder money. In the article, "At Hearing, Real and Virtual Worlds Collide", other cons are briefly mentioned. Some of these include: child safety, religion and cults, economic problems. I think in addition to these concerns, a major con could be that it becomes habit forming and somehow takes precedence over reality. People may lose touch with reality if they get addicted and in a way "stuck" in a virtual world.

Virtual worlds can definitely foster creativity. Again, this is probably one of virtual reality's strong suits because the possibilities are endless. With the ability to access and/or create learning experiences, people can learn in new ways. This in turn will obviously foster creativity. For example, if I were to use virtual reality, I could maybe create a situation where I go back in time and meet Vincent van Gogh and learn more about his painting techniques. The information that I learn from that type of simulation would probably be much more engaging and memorable than reading about it in a textbook.

I think the future for virtual worlds is definitely full of possibilities but just needs to be harnessed and controlled the right way. Just like most other things technological, with such great potential benefits, there are always potential downfalls. I think our human race can learn and accomplish greater things with the help of virtual worlds. It can be life-changing for our species, but at the same time it could also destroy us if we don't handle it with care and good intention.