For my final project, Meredith Langer and I are working with the world of Webkinz. This new media is an interesting combination of Beanie Babies, the Sims, Tamagachi, and almost any form of an online game you could imagine. Customers must purchase a stuffed toy in order to get into the online world where they take care of their pet. (I have two pets already: a duck named Dudley and a cat named Olivia.) Because Webkinz is aimed at children, it also has an educational aspect to the activities participators are supposed to perform. For example, in order to earn the virtual money KinzCash, children do jobs and play games that range from spatial recognition to memory to spelling and math. Webkinz incorporates networking by allowing children to send gifts and pre-scripted messages to their friends and participate in pre-scripted chat rooms and tournaments. You are also taught patience by being forced to wait a certain amount of time to perform jobs, go gem mining, play special games, or even gardening. Responsibility is enforced because participants must feed and bath their pets while earning, saving, and spending money. Overall, I believe that Webkinz is an entirely positive experience for children of many different ages.
Meredith and I are gaining research by actually participating in Webkinz World. It seems that some new cranny of the world is discovered daily. We’ve also looked up newspaper articles online that discuss this new fad within the culture of American children. We are still currently working on gathering information.
For our final presentation, Meredith and I are planning on building a model of one of our rooms within Webkinz world. We are then going to film a video of a pet moving around in both the online room and model room. We feel that switching between the two really will exemplify the way Webkinz seamlessly travels between the real and virtual worlds. There may be some second part to the presentation but as of now, we have not settled on exactly what that will be. All in all, I have to say that I am really excited about this project!
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