First, apolologies for the South Park reference in the title.
Following the hyperlink I included will land you at a brief news story on the Chronicle of Higher Education website concerning a grant in the amount of $100,000 awarded to a prof. at the University of California at Irvine in order to study users of the online game World of Warcraft.
http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/index.php?id=3320&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en
While this may or may not fascinate you, please read on to where us academics decide that we must comment on said article. Predictably, there are many people who are willing to view this as beneficial, and many who see this as a complete waste. I'll hold my own opinions in check for the moment, but if the comments begin here, I will most certainly weigh in with my own...
Though the grant is primarily written with ethnographic study and social interaction study in mind, in the context of Online Education, this also lands solidly in a discussion of virtual environments. And by the way, ethnographic and social interaction studies are important in education, too.
So I didn't do a great job of holding my opinions in check. Oops.
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2 comments:
I remember reading an article on how a glitch in WoW resembled a viral pandemic. Scientists began to document the movement and speed of the pandemic within the game.
So, it isn't the first time WoW was resource for research. Here is the hyperlink Times Online.
Michael,
This type of modeling is pretty fascinating. I was speaking with a colleague who told me of a science summit that was held within the WoW environs. I cannot recall the details now, but I remember it sounded interesting. I think someone died (in game).
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