| The purpose of this study was to collect and analyze data that is produced within KaMOO with regard to Situated Learning theory. The data was used to describe the contexts, activities, and the behavior of the participants (students) as they naturally occurred within this virtual world. Moreover, this study focused on the situational properties that occurred as the participants constructed meaning and identity within the learning environment. An ethnographic design was utilized for this study, as the goal was to obtain a cultural snapshot of the KaMOO community.; KaMOO was a standards-based, literacy-driven, virtual reality based on the California Social Studies standards. Within the KaMOO environment, students constructed their learning by interacting with others, building mental models, and role playing. The students were immersed in a world of words that brought the curriculum to life. KaMOO offered a new paradigm, one that involved a more active, collaborative, constructivist approach to synthesis. This study also examined whether this environment could be transformed into a virtual learning community; a community of practice.; Findings indicated that within KaMOO, meaning, thinking, identity, and knowing were the results of the interactions and relations among the participants within the KaMOOnity and the activities in which they were engaged. In short, the Learners were engaged both in the context of their learning and in the broader social world where these contexts were produced.; This study showed that engagement, imagination, and alignment are all important ingredients of learning. Through the examination of KaMOO, this study also revealed that the keys to the learning process were the interactions among the students, the interactions among the masters and the students, and the collaboration in the learning environment that resulted from these interactions. Within KaMOO there was a sense of belonging that transcended time and space, uniting the participants in outcomes that were bigger than their individual selves. This mode of belonging involved trade-offs. Combining them enabled the participants to compensate for each other's shortcomings. Such combinations allowed a learning community to move between participation and nonparticipation in order to create a richer context for learning. |
