Getting Started
Alright, let's start the journey of social media discovery. Today I looked at three different sites: Whyville, Club Penguin, and Habbo. As I mentioned yesterday, these environments are designed for a younger age bracket - tweens and teens. Not only am I looking at the overall design and usability of these sites, but also whether or not these are good educational tools for this age group.Whyville
The first environment that I entered was Whyville. According to their website, "Whyville is a virtual world where children ages 8 to 15 play, explore, create and learn together." Here's a look at the homepage:
At the very top, the site welcomes you and asks you to design an avatar by clicking on a face and then choosing various components. Before I knew it, I had created an avatar and had joined as a guest. It was really easy! I liked that I could join as a guest (with limited access and chat capabilities), as I later found out that this is not usually the case. Once my avatar was created, I started to explore.
The world was pretty easy to navigate and pretty intuitive (Click to walk to a destination, type and press enter to chat, etc.). It's also quite large, with a wide range of landmarks - everything from a beach area to a food court. Almost immediately I saw that this environment is designed to make learning happen everywhere. For example, I went to BioOlympics Village and learned about the speed of different animals. I imagine all the locations you visit have a similar bent.
This world was clearly designed with learning in mind. Almost everywhere you go there are people to talk to and activities to complete. I could definitely see a teacher adding this to their curriculum so that students not only learn about specific topics, but about how to navigate in a digital world.
Overall, I would say that I was pretty impressed with the design of this site. I think it would appeal to kids, though they may be more interested in playing the games than doing any of the learning activities.
Club Penguin
The second environment I visited was Club Penguin.
After watching their introduction video, I was eager to explore the world. However, I found that I couldn't enter as a guest, so my exploration of the site was limited to clicking around the various information tabs. But I think I got a pretty good idea of what this site is all about.
Instead of a human avatar, everyone in this world is a penguin. By turning everyone into animals, you take hyper-sexualization completely out of the equation. It's a thoughtful and creative way to not have to worry about the potentially negative effects body image can have on children. Plus, who doesn't love penguins?
Whereas Whyville had learning goals specific to a certain subject (you can track a shark, or learn about hydrothermal vents in the Oceanographic Institute, for example), Club Penguin seems to have more general, big picture goals. Instead of learning specific subjects, the focus is on bigger concepts like creativity, teamwork, and money management.
In Club Penguin, members can play games, adopt pets (called puffles), customize their penguin, and chat with friends. I also noticed that you can pay for a membership fee, which allows you to access extra features. I think a membership fee is a turn-off for a lot of users, since they can easily find other networks with similar capabilities that are completely free.
Habbo
The last world that I visited today was Habbo. While I couldn't enter the world without a membership, I do think I got a pretty good idea of what the site is all about by clicking around. Their tagline is: "A strange place with awesome people." Here's a look at the homepage:
Like the other worlds, it's free to play. Also, like the other worlds, you can pay for membership which gives you access to special clubs. The Habbo world is designed look like a hotel, and you can explore various rooms and chat, play games, and go shopping. You can even create your own rooms and selfies.
As you can see from this screenshot, Habbo is a place to "create your own avatar, make friends, chat, build rooms, design + play game and so much more!" Anyone over 13 can join, but it's been designed with teenagers in mind.
Speaking of safety, safety is taken very seriously on Habbo. Not only do they have safety tips, but a whole list of "do's and don'ts" during gameplay. I also get the feeling that chatting and building a community is important in Habbo, though I suppose it's important in all virtual worlds for them to be successful.
Final Thoughts
I think that all three of these environments are a good place for teens and tweens to spend their time on the internet. Internet safety is a top priority in each of these worlds, meaning that users can enjoy gameplay without worrying about anything bad happening.
All of these worlds allow users to explore and be creative, whether it's through their avatar or through building something within the world. We definitely didn't have anything like this when I was growing up, and I wonder if I would have been interested in joining any of these sites. I didn't realize that these types of sites for teens existed, though I shouldn't really be surprised.
I don't know why, but I was also surprised that all the environments had virtual money. Whyville has clams, ClubPenguin has coins, and Habbo has duckets. It makes sense that they have some sort of currency, and it's a good way to learn about savings and money management.
I could see teachers integrating one of these worlds in the curriculum, whether it's to learn about a specific subject in Whyville, or to collaborate on a project with others in Club Penguin or Habbo.
Check back tomorrow for an exploration of three more worlds!
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