INTRODUCTION

The work is original in its kind because it involves children interacting in tri-dimensional chat-lines with adults, who are willing to "virtually" realize – with 3D constructions – the children’s desires.

The following is a research work, since adults are engaged in verifying the impact of new communication technologies in children, taking note of behavior, hypotheses, graphic realizations, as well as of the memory itself of such experience. A mixed community is thereby created, involving: teachers, parents, children, and people not directly related to the school world. Communication occurs via chat, e-mail and telephone, giving rise to a strong social interaction.

It is possible to communicate and cooperate long-distance (through the Internet) with a software which enables to talk with more users simultaneously, and to build tri-dimensional objects (e.g., a house) all users interact with.

The software used in this form of computer-mediated communication is called "chat". There are different kind of chats, some of them simply consist in text display using the keyboard, while some other chats, such as the one we are talking about in this document, are enriched with a tri-dimensional graphic interface.

The chat we utilized during the period of some months is named Active Worlds. Since this communication form is multimedia, it is necessary to download the software from the related Internet Website. The procedure starts with the Internet site search through a tool called browser. When the desired Website is found and accessed, it is possible to download the program which is supplied in multi-language versions (including Italian).

Active Worlds can be defined a system of tri-dimensional virtual worlds (Italian, Spanish, Russian, English, and American worlds) where some people have the responsibility that all the activities are carried out correctly; these supervisors are called Public Speakers, and are recognized by bold writing. Worlds can be traveled by users in the form of "AVATARS".

Following is a list of possible actions:

Active world thus gives us a visual space context where long-distance conversations are carried out, and it represents the access interface to educational resources, in addition to educational content. The three classes of Latina's school involved have their own "active worlds" called "AW", "ITALIA" and "WINTER". In these worlds, virtual spaces for children have been reserved, where they can meet with other people and play in real time.

In our project we have two different kinds
of communication-cooperation:

1. Mature Communication - Cooperation

During summer 1998 I started to interact in Active Worlds, and I have met Alberto De Gerolamo (Reggio Calabria, Italy), Renee Saari (Michigamme, Michigan USA) and Alessandra Visser (Ferrara, Italy). After a discussion with the school colleague Patrizia Carlaccini (nickname "Onda") I proposed our chat friends a project for the realization of virtual spaces inside "active worlds".

Purpose of the project was to verify children behavior in the virtual worlds, and to determine if navigation inside these worlds could give an "added value" for children learning of space, logic and communicative skills. Back to school, we involved colleagues from other classes in this project. Our long-distance friends realized, in the active world "WINTER", the house of the teacher, the airport, the school café, the airplanes, the ice joust, the children exhibition and so on...; in the active world "ITALIA" there are the children joust and their work exhibit (on line drawings), in active world "AW" there is my house, built over a swimming-pool.

2. Communication - cooperation mature- child

We have formed small groups of children, and we have organized an "on line treasure hunt" in the "AW" swimming pool. Using a mouse and the arrows keys, children have followed our friend's avatars around; and then we saw again, in off-line mode, a related CD that I have realized for the discussion session. After this session, children have filled a questionnaire (which was common to all classes), giving their impressions and thoughts on the avatars' meeting, and how their school should be built. Later on, the children's drawing have been sent via e-mail to all long-distance friends met in the project: once the drawings have been published on the Web, our long-distance friends have organized exhibits of the children's drawings. Starting with the comparison of the real school, where we spend the all day, and the virtual school created by our long-distance friends, we have had discussions and opinions exchanges..