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But not Least...

Virtually There

What Neopets Can Teach Us about Content Delivery

Some discussion has arisen in various lists about the value and place of online courses in the k12 learning environment. Although I do not feel that this is an appropriate content delivery method for students under the grade of 9 (and even then only with qualifiers - see But not Least...Skills for Learning), I do feel that learning online is an essential element of learning for the future. What follows is a quick look at what Neopets, a hugely successful online content delivery/interactive learning tool, provides for education at the crucial Middle School level. My facts come from almost two years of monitored Neopet use in a Middle School computer lab, from playing with my own account (I am neosprinkles to my fellow Neopians), and from an extended interview/tutorial with a brilliant 6th grader who is using the site "to the max." What, I asked, does this virtual computer world offer to the student?

Neopets offers to its users:

  1. A password protected identity in a password protected community.  This is virtual security. Educators who pause to reflect upon the observed needs of middle school students will realize immediately that a secure and private community supports learning (remember too that learning at this age is often social, physical or emotional). Students seek out sub-groups with whom to identify and will often create them outside of the academic sphere. Research by Howard Rheingold (Smart Mobs; the Next Social Revolution, Perseus Publishing, 2002) suggests that this sense of virtual community is protracted, or perhaps recreated, by 15-22 year olds using text messaging.
  2. Communication tools 24/7  and reasons to use them - Mail and chat are available to those who create an account (parent permission is "required" via an online form if the user is under 13). Moreover, a user's "identity" models an adult identity - based upon name and gathered attributes (earned and purchased) a user is able to form alliances and compete against other members of the community, even send virtual postcards (as well as actual digital postcards). In a computer lab setting, Neopets users will maintain a verbal dialogue about discoveries and disappointments, a diary that often results in cooperative "bidding" or "purchasing" that is helpful in nature.
  3. Virtual nurturing - Originally, game players only "created" virtual Neopets (Neopets are cartoonish animalish creatures) as the major online interaction. This remains a major part of game play and the entree level of play for most community members.  Pets are named, can be given attributes and have needs (hunger is a major one) that the "owner" must meet. However, as one experienced Neopets user pointed out, "They never die, so that is really not most important." The pets represent an opportunity for responsibility, a set of baseline ethics for the experience that even my cynical tutor acknowledged. It is important that a player, having learned about and succeeded at nurturing, can move on to other levels of community involvement. Given the instability of the outside world, and even of the Neopets world (it is updated daily, often more than once a day), the nurturing is clearly important. Perhaps most importantly, most players can become quite good at nurturing (or quite able to admit they are bad at it) - so they come back for more. 
  4. Virtual places that can be explored from a familiar, concrete representation - The Neopet world, Neopia, has many "lands," each of which has a history, an ongoing story (told in a series of plot steps called Acts and Chapters that are animated movies), and a hovering Evil.  It is possible not only to visit the lands (where players can play "games and attractions"), but also to participate in the story's outcome.  The stories are of war, battle, myth, and not always good winning over evil. They are complex and often rich linguistically in a Harry Potter sort of way. Like good stories, they break at chapter climaxes and rarely disappoint the reader. What's more, they interconnect. Read one, and the next one is richer.
  5. Digital places that represent concrete "real life" experiences - There is a stock market. There are endless shops. Neopia has a newspaper, world events, weather reports, "Guilds" (smaller, goal or interest focused groups that users can join or initiate), popularity contests (of the pets, not the people), a language (complete with sound files for pronunciation). Did I mention shops with ever changing prices and every-changing stock?
  6. Games, Contests, Rules & Rewards - playing games wins Neopoints! Being kind (sending a pet to a friend) earns Neopoints. There are writing and drawing contests as well as endless and varied games. Neopoints can be used to purchase powers, Neopets, toys and food and rare stuff for Neopets, or just to accumulate in a "bank" than a player can be proud of. This is an environment rife with reward.
  7. Opportunities to create and control one's own part of the community - Players not only own pets and objects, they can advertise, auction off, and sell them. They can undersell other players. They can make web sites (with a rudimentary knowledge of .html, players can link to other sites and add their own images). As a Guild leader, advanced or ambitious players can monitor chats and bulletin boards.
  8. Change and Variety - Perhaps the most important aspect of this web space is its mastery of Change. There is so much change that the site now maintains a New Features section. This is certainly pandering to the Middle School desire for "the most of the best of the latest," but it is also driving the ongoing success of the site. After all, change with security is a motto for Middle School. And change makes it harder.  Hard is good.
  9. Information - Help is available for all parts of the site, including .html tutorials. Players use the Help will do better, faster than those who don't.
  10. Flawless record-keeping - Neopians rely upon the underlying database structure of the software to keep them informed, keep others up to date on their purchases and bids, and know them when they enter.  From the ability to send an email reminding one of a forgotten password (how do I know about that?), to auction bids, to tallies of votes and stock purchases, this is a world that models the organization of an enormous amount and variety of information.

In a true sense, this is a bounded world - it is self-sufficient and "safe."  Although no adult is in charge, there is a sense of order, purpose, rule and direction in which to explore and experience change. The ever changing nature of the experience guarantees that a members will return. The fact that it is complex and hard makes it fun (Seymour Papert calls this "hard fun"). The pride that players experience when they succeed reinforces their learning.

So where is the learning?

  1. Communication skills - Neopets is, for players, a community activity. It is most enjoyed as elementary and middle school "parallel play" - side by side experiences that can be competitive, involve much verbal interplay, and require compromise, bluffing and careful listening to the questions and plans of others. Responding to the actions of another player (this is more fun if you know who she/he is) is a major part of the game. Chat, email and the "auction-like" communications that happen at the higher level of interactivity mimic "real world" involvement in the same activities. The major teacher of all things Neopets is always a more experienced user. The students who are shy about playing or who are not at all engaged in the play are those who lack communication confidence or who feel uncomfortable with pace of the playing group around them. Often, this initially shy user will "lurk" for a month or so before undertaking an independent identity in Neopia. With the security of the community that welcomes her, she can be seen asking questions and taking risks in short order.
  2. Site navigation skills - In order to succeed at Neopets (whether the user is measuring success on the scale of Neopoints, Neopets, Neo-knowledge, or just plain pleasure) the player must be able to navigate swiftly between two or three iconic menus. Decoding this process is an essential skill for information literacy, although not one that gets much play in the academic classroom.
  3. Risk-taking in exploration and development of strategies for risk-taking - Another skill not generally isolated in the classroom (but often evaluated), this skill is an essential element of information literacy and upper school independent technology-supported problem solving. Neopets consistently rewards risks that are well strategized, while teaching that many paths also lead nowhere. Learning this safely is a valuable lesson for the middle schooler.

Above all, a safe and non-judgmental playing ground in which to develop these skills.

That's about it - but the site does not claim to have any educational goals. The point is that education can and should have some Neopian goals. Virtual worlds such as VRoma, a MOO built upon ancient Rome, and MooseCrossing, a MOO built upon imaginary worlds built upon the real world, engage students in many of the same tasks. But successful academic MOO's and virtual spaces are few and far between.  If there were one in your subject area, would you integrate it into your curriculum? Would you play it yourself?

If you are a Middle School teacher and you can't answer these questions, I recommend that you get yourself an identity in Neopia. If you teach girls, I also recommend that you take a look at some of the materials I have gathered at Gender Gap. Most relevant is this task: visit Neopets and then read the criteria for girl-attractive electronic technology that have been identified by Girls Tech, a Rutgers University/Douglass College study. 

Note: I would like to thank Mary Beth Burns, Lower School Technology Coordinator at The Chapin School, for her patient attention and important contributions.

Elizabeth Sky-McIlvain 4/27/03