This is a fascinating approach to teaching about the pandemic. What challenges did you encounter/design for in attempting to replicate and represent COVID-19?

Thank you for taking the time to watch our video on a virtual epidemic to help people playfully learn about pandemics. Our team of educators, designers, and researchers would be interested in your feedback especially in regard to the following questions:

- How could you see using this virtual epidemic in your classes or homes?

- Where do you see this connecting to classrooms (subjects, standards, etc.)? 

- What parts of the virtual epidemic seem more interesting/helpful to you? What do you want more information about?

- Is there anything else you'd be interested in seeing in the design of a virtual epidemic?

I'm impressed that you were able to make this work happen so quickly during COVID. Did you have the concept prior to COVID? In other words, was is an idea you'd been noodling or was this work in response to the epidemic?

Side question: why do you think more girls participate in Whyville? Is it a genre thing? 

Thank for sharing! I look forward to looking at your resources & the paper.

Yes, we have been designing and studying virtual epidemics for over 20 years. I always thought that this was such an interesting and compelling concept to learn about infectious diseases. The real time dimension, the community dynamics make it a perfect "breeding ground" for an outbreak. But then, we never had a pandemic happening at the same time which has highlighted over and over gain a need for people to understand not just the physiological aspects of a virus but also the community dimensions.

Yes, Whyville had always 2/3 girls as participants.

I will post a link to most recent paper later

Hello, RAPID team and collaborators! I was glad to read in your earlier replies that you put some safeguards in place for students who are experiencing grief related to Covid-19 (for example, that there are no deaths in Whyville). In my role this year as a high school science teacher, I waited many months before directly teaching content that was directly Covid-19-related; I wanted to make sure I had relationships and family knowledge in place so that I could do so respectfully and with the appropriate support if needed.

I'm deeply curious about the ways mutual aid and/or government policy is represented in this Whyville simulation. What considerations did you make around these politicized topics with modeling ways that students could help -- and did participants' views on aid shift as a result of participating in this game?

This project is so timely. Everyone can relate. I, like Kirstin, wondered how students' perspectives shifted as a result of engaging in the game.  You mentioned their attitudes changed about masking and testing. How was this information gathered and did attitudes vary by demographics?  You may have not conducted this type of analysis but I am curious if you did. 

Thank you.

Thanks for your interest in our work! We examined student writings submitted to the publicly available Whyville newspaper!  There are no notable differences by demographic, but there were some significant differences based on familial proximity to COVID. Those who had first hand experiences with COVID, unsurprisingly, had less of a shift in attitude. It seems like they were already taking the pandemic more seriously because of these personal experiences. Shifts were more robust among youth who did not articulate their own personal connection to COVID. 

Hi Yasmin! It's great to learn about the exciting work you are doing. What a great way to address the spread of disease in the time of COVID. I wonder if there is a way that we can collaborate to make science more welcoming to a wider range of learners? See our work exploring the ways teachers collaborate to emphasize social justice in science--one of our activities addresses COVID data. Enjoy, Marcia

Excellent. What a novel idea and such rapid delivery. Kudos.

Kudos to Yasmin, Debbie Fields and their team for this collaborative and interesting project.  As Yasmin mentioned, we (Whyville) have been collaborating for many years on research about children in online virtual worlds.  A great deal of that work is summarized in the book Collected Play, authored by Yasmin and Debbie and published several years ago by MIT Press.   Whyville this month celebrates 22 years of continuous operation exploring innovative mechanisms for engaging students and teachers in a wide range of subjects.  That experience means that we can often rapidly and successfully bring new projects into existence.  Very happy to provide additional information to anyone interested.  

Sorry, the name of the book is "connected play"  - my apologies.  :-). Best to all

This is an excellent approach for introducing students to epidemiology!  Experiencing the virtual environment and world gives students a direct access to the science of how diseases and viruses like COVID-19 spread and how to prevent it. Well done as this will make cerain health-related professions like epidemiology or data science more visible and accessible to students.

Exciting project and so glad you had been working in this arena for many years before the real pandemic hit so that it could be so timely! Eight million registered users, wow! I'm curious now from your experience to date what revisions or adjustments you are considering or wishing for - for next steps. Another way to wonder out loud is to ask you what you are learning and thinking about as the game play and real world events continue to unfold. Appreciation for your experienced perspective.

Thanks and congratulations!

Sarah

Good Afternoon, thank you for the video! 

I am curious how you (or the teachers you worked with) thought about and supported students' social-emotional needs while learning about a topic so close to real-life events. Additionally, how did students support one another within the curriculum when discussing the more emotional issues related to public health crises, or write about it within the curriculum? This is wonderful, timely work! 

Yes, excellent question and something that the team working on this project considered from the outset.  More generally, Whyville has worked with faculty at the William James College in Newton Mass for a number of years on ways in which virtual worlds can be used to support social emotional learning in tweens.  Some interesting projects.  Happy to provide additional information for anyone who might be interested.   

Here's the most recent study with findings from SPIKEY-20 implementation in Whyville: https://drive.google.com/file/d/155YvoZ3die1sbULvLJQYNUm4gxzEscEe/view?usp=sharing

Hi SPIKEY-20 team! Circling back to thank you for such a lovely video and discussion. I'm particularly stricken by the diversity of questions (and answers) asked in the dialogue here -- a sure sign that are were lots of people as interested in this work as I am :)

Thank you Kirstin! It’s been a lively and enjoyable discussion. :-

What grade range did you target for Whyville? 

Hi Candice, Initially the activities were focused on for middle school grades but we also had a teacher use it with high school students.

Fascinating way to conduct rapid research on a timely situation!

Thanks, I need to admit we started working on it 20 years ago. We also modeled a respiratory virtual virus five years ago. We used this as a template for the design of SPIKEY-20. That's why we were able to pivot so rapidly.