Whyville Article II

Using virtual chat to study informal learning in online environments By Brian J. Foley & Ali Kobaissi (Summary by Roland Pont

Paper presented at the annual meeting for the American Educational Research Association, San Francisco CA April 7-11, 2006

In this article the authors claim that the accessibility of Internet based informal learning environments such as Whyville have an advantage over the more formal ones such as libraries which typically get visited once a year.

Critics question the effectiveness of sites such as Whyville in the learning of science. Responding to critics, the creators of Whyville attempted to increase the science aspect by introducing a virus called “Whypox” into the artificial environment.

The focus of this article is to investigate whether the virus would actually increase discussion, learning and inquiry amongst the users of Whyville. Data was collected through the use of bulletin boards, the Whyville Times, and through chat rooms. Because of the enormous size of the data collection of the latter, certain keywords were looked for to identify chatter about science. The findings of the 35 day study was that during that time period science related activity increased slightly but that the overall impact of the disease was minimal and only a few people participated in science in a meaningful way.

The authors conclude the article stating that as more of such sites become available, researchers will get a better understanding of what activities enhance science learning.