Pet Park : a virtual learning world for kids

Abstract

Pet Park is a graphical, networked virtual world for kids. Kids can log in to Pet Park over the Internet to talk with other kids and create new pets. They can design behaviors for their pets by writing scripts with a simple programming language for kids called YoYo. Pet Park is a collaborative building environment that recognizes the importance of community support for construction. This thesis discusses the differences between graphical online worlds like Pet Park and their text-based cousins. Many of these differences have important ramifications for the design and implementation of constructionist graphical environments. This thesis goes on to present a set of design criteria for a next generation of graphical learning worlds.