Media Review: VPlace

Virtual places of learning have historically been better known for their many pedagogical liabilities than their affordances, seen as an ersatz learning experience students make-do with when face-to-face learning isn't possible. Digital learning systems have lent themselves towards traditional, cognitively-focused, experientially-anemic modes of instruction and assessment (Black, 2010; Robin, 2008), for example making it easier to institute standardized tests in core subjects via computer than, say, put on a choral concert. Experiential weaknesses haven't just affected learning, but socialization. In SWOT analyses (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, Threat ) of past e-learning platforms, the majority of the identified weaknesses were related to the (lack of) quality of social interaction (Schroeder et al., 2010). Without the real-world social and non-verbal sensory cues that facilitate social communication and learning in face-to-face learning, learners in virtual learning environments typically had less-satisfying and less-clear interactions, marked by misunderstandings and difficulties (Schroeder et al., 2010). Media theorist Sherry Turkle (2015) ha argued that, traditionally, digitally-mediated social interactions have tended to exclude the affective, embodied dimension of social interactions, resulting in reduced empathy and emotional literacy.

The developers of VPlace have seemingly sought to address each of these issues in their creation of this new platform. This author credits the involvement of the NEA in this move, as art educators have historically been among the most vocally critical of the experientally-anemic learning facilitated by traditional digital learning platforms (Akins et al., 2004; Baker et al., 2016). In the words of one art educator responded to Baker et al.'s (2016) study of educators’ perceptions of e-learning efficiently condenses these biases, concerns, and questions of how to best proceed: “Art[s] by their virtue are performative and rely on socially constructed learnings. I'm at a loss as to how this can be satisfactorily achieved in a fully online platform” (p. 37). The developers of VPlace appear to have taken concerns like these to heart, resulting in a platform that affords teachers and learners of all subjects, not just the arts, a form of digital learning the recognizes that the whole body, not just the bit from the neck upwards, engages in teaching and learning. Going further, VPlace recognizes that learning happens between bodies in the broadest sense-- between the material bodies of students and teachers, the material bodies of their artworks, and the material bodies that comprise and fill their places of learning.

VPlace specifically seems to address critiques of the lack of socioemotional learning historically afforded by digital learning platforms (Schroeder et al., 2010). The platform is designed to facilitate a variety of types of creative collaboration between students, recognizing that collaborative learning experiences can foster a sense of social connection and community in both virtual and physical learning environments, and arts-based collaborative pedagogies can be especially effective at generating a sense of community and social belonging (Perry & Edwards, 2016).

VPlace also allows folks to present in a variety of ways, including virtual bodies of their own design that don't enforce a particular (ableist) conception of a "humanoid" body shape, or life video feeds of their physical faces. This flexibility actually gives VPlace an edge over physical spaces of learning when it comes to affording students agency over their bodily presentation, and allowing them to exert control over different valences of identity. In earlier, less technically sophisticated e-learning spaces, teachers have observed that social interactions such as critiques were less stressful and more productive for some students (Akins et al., 2004; Castro, 2014; Miiller & Smith, 2009). In 2009, using a rudimentary text- and image- based distance learning platform, Art Educators and Scholars Susan Miiler and Linda Smith noted that “students experienced freedom from face-to-face stress and were far more enthusiastic and forthcoming with their comments and constructive criticism” (p. 496). The plasticity of identity afforded by VPlace magnifies these communicative and social potentials, as well as creating accommodating spaces for neurodivergent, trans, and nonbinary learners and teachers.