Betaville is an open-source multiplayer environment for visualization of participants' own built environment, designed to promote the development of general 3D visualization and design skills, and a new approach and open resource for participatory urban planning, design, and public art in context and for the long term. Along the way, Betaville will promote awareness and experience of open-source software development for collaborative design, participatory planning, and new practices in public art. The skills kids are developing in online games during leisure time as entertainment can be leveraged as skills for creative expression and social empowerment of the students and their own communities, embedded in and serving local issues and desires. If those skills can at the same time provide a pathway from consumption through creative use to understanding the underlying technology in greater depth, or at least understanding the intimacy of the connection between their game-playing skills and computing per se, we might actually motivate greater and more effective participation in STEM fields and community life.
http://devstreak.net/betaville/pages/manifesto
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