Blue Mars and Beyond

Blue Mars

The virtual world Blue Mars seems, at first glance, fairly typical of all virtual worlds. This is the homepage for Blue Mars:

I clicked around a bit and found that there is a bit more to Blue Mars than I originally thought. When I clicked on the 'about' section, I was redirected here:

I found out the Blue Mars includes four different components that work together to make the overall virtual world platform. Blue Mars Client is "your window into our free to play massively multiplayer virtual world." Blue Mars Sandbox Editor is "the bridge between your offline content and the online Blue Mars world." BlueMars.com is "the central hub for discovery, community, and user and developer account management." Lastly, Blue Mars Servers "distribute the content uploaded into the virtual world by developers, manage the global item and inventory database, and coordinate the movement, actions, and communication of the users exploring Blue Mars."
Overall, it looks like a very sophisticated system in which online and offline data come together.

One thing that impressed me was their events page. Blue Mars will help you promote an event within the virtual environment. This could be a great way for teachers or students to come together.

Overall, I couldn't find too much out about this world. It seems to be age appropriate, though with the usual slightly hyper-sexualized avatars. There are no learning goals as far as a I could see, though they do have a lot of tools for developers, so I think they are focused on development of the virtual world. Also, the pages look like they haven't been updated in a while, so while the virtual world may be thriving, it doesn't look too impressive on the outside.

Twinity

My overall impression of Twinity is that it would not be suitable in an educational environment. Much would have to be changed about the world for educators (and parents) to allow students to enter. Here's a look at the homepage:

Already I feel that this virtual environment is hyper-sexualized and not appropriate for learners. It looks more like a place to find a date. Twinity advertises themselves as a "3D chat community with endless possibilities," so basic chatting is probably the overall goal of this world.

Of course, like most virtual worlds, Twinity has a privacy policy and rules to prevent cyberbullying and the like. I think these are good values, though they seem to be the standard for all virtual environments.

If you look on the right side of the above picture, it says "Explore Berlin." I think this could be a cool feature because it allows you to "travel" and experience other cities. However, I think the overall branding of this world doesn't align with educational values, which brings me to my final screenshot. 

The last page I found was all about flirting! Twinity advertises their world as a place to chat, flirt and date. I think most educators would not be on board with this, especially since it is something that they are explicitly promoting. Ultimately, I think Twinity has a lot of potential, but the underlying values aren't a good fit for a learning environment.

Club Cooee

The final world for today is Club Cooee, a German-based virtual environment. 

At first glance, this seems to be a pretty standard virtual world, although I will admit that the avatars a bit more cartoonish (and cuter) than some of the other avatars I've seen. They seem to be designed for a slightly younger teenage crowd.

Perhaps because this is due to virtual world overload, but a lot of these environments are starting to look very similar to me. They all offer the possibilities to chat, shop, and design within he world. One thing that is interesting about Club Cooee is that Cooee GmbH owns a social music app called djparty.fm. This music app has been integrated into the Club Cooee world, which means that it is basically just a front for promoting their music app.

I think the Club Cooee is trying to sell their product (the djparty.fm music app), which isn't really in line with educational values, unless the focus of your class is on sharing music. Who knows?