A Question about Croquet's Philosophy on Multi-user 3D Environments...

Darius squeakuser at inglang.com
Wed Feb 12 20:51:30 UTC 2003


I stretched and exercised my imagination to the n-th degree and have developed 
these probable scenarios for using Croquet as a virtual auditorium. Also, I’ve 
excluded scenarios where other media would work just as well.  

1. Interactive Forum with free Croquet World give-away

 • Imagine, for the sake of argument, that the Fields Institute for Research in 
Mathematical Sciences invited Alan Kay and Seymour Papert to the (exotic and 
far off land of) Toronto for the Mathematics Education Forum Online Meeting 
circa 2004. 
 • These two luminaries tasked their minions to set up a Croquet world to 
illustrate their talk, challenge their audience, excite their virtual attendees 
to action, and proved a foundation toolbox world for all attendees to use to 
seed their own efforts.
 • The minion constituted “Croquet for the Education-Forum Team” bases the 
world on a running simulation of a Squeak workshop conducted by, say, Kyoto 
University, Japan, circa 2003.
 • They create a skybox for their world with a digitized movie created by omni-
directional sensors with a 360º view. 
 • Around the world’s room they place Croquet windows showing each student’s 
Squeak desktop world that also plays the student’s actions in time with the 
background sky box movie.
 • As the presenters Kay and Papert speak during the forum, they have avatar 
representatives that walk around in the Croquet world with laser line pointers 
that focus the virtual audience’s attention to the individual students’, 
teachers’, and consultants’ actions and the student’s desktops as the talk 
progresses in real time. The Squeak workshop simulation progresses in matching 
time (skipping any boring stretches).
 • The virtual audience can also analyze the statistics about the students’ 
past PC experience, grade level, PC habits, and post exercise feelings to 
formulate questions for the presenters while the forum is in progress.
 • The audience can watch the students’ idea sharing and interaction ripple 
around the room from student to student as they “communicate spontaneously with 
friends.”
 • At the end of the forum, the team develops in the Croquet world a conceptual 
model of observed student learning behavior (thereby standardizing future cross-
organizational efforts) with: 
   • new hypotheses to test
   • suggestions for efficient use of time
   • suggestions on how to know your are accurately measuring what you’re 
testing
   • a data structure template to record the results of subsequent real world 
workshops conducted later by the virtual audience
   • a list of the goals such workshops should try to attain if distributed on 
a large scale

2. Timed Performance Art
 • A virtual audience for 3D performance art that is not reproducible on 
demand. 

3. Create Simulations in Real time during the unfolding of History Events
 • Collecting and sharing algorithms, formulas, statistical patterns, and 
precedents that best explain the situation as it unfolds.

4. Medical Dissection of a Rare Specimen 
 • Create Multiple-camera live video feed to several Croquet windows.
 • Experts collaborate on what the appropriate next step of the operation 
should be.
 • Facilitate debate with comparative tissue slides presented along side the 
video feeds.
 • Facilitate debate over possible next steps in the procedure as illustrated 
with a 3D model of the specimen.
 • Students watch the dissection in progress.
 • “Blending learning in physical environments and computational environments.”

Well
 also
 eh-ehem [clears throat]


5. For students to Create their own MMOGs.
 • This allows students to simulate and practice what they’ve recently 
discovered and learned and present it in a challenging and competitive 
environment.
 • Mix in a little Pop-Culture. 
   ”Merchants of Cool: Frontline Report on the Creators & Marketers of Popular 
Culture for Teenagers” - The symbiotic relationship; the media giants; what's 
this doing to kids? - http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/cool/  
   Teacher’s Guide: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/teach/cool/ 
 • See Janet Murray’s “Hamlet on the Holodeck” & education -  
http://www.wam.umd.edu/~mlhall/teaching.htmlhttp://directory.google.com/Top/Games/Video_Games/Roleplaying/Massive_Multiplaye
r_Online/
 • http://directory.google.com/Top/Games/Internet/MUDs/Role_Playing_MUDs/

Re-reading Michael Dertouzos’ “The Unfinished Revolution” - 
http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/art0128.html?printable=1 
and Janet Murray’s “Hamlet on the Holodeck” - 
http://web.mit.edu/jhmurray/www/HOH.html
might suggest some more scenarios to me. 

Cheers,
Darius



More information about the Squeak-dev mailing list