Online+Community+Journal

**Online Community Journal**
I tried a lot of options Classroom 2.0 - not a lot of activity, Second Life -too much for my current comuter to handle - before finally settling on Club Penguin which I thought would give me some insights into some online experiences of my students.

Here is my Club Penguin user experience.

I thought I’d join Club Penguin as it is an online game my students would play and I’ve never been on it or anything like it. Just getting set up to play is interesting. You get to create your own penguin and give it a name. So I thought I would name it Tulip. It said Tulip was taken try Tulip7865. I didn’t want all the numbers after the name so I thought I’d try a different flower name. That name is taken. I tried a few more and then in frustration tried the name “Weed”. It said that name is not allowed. I guess they do take the positive interaction component quite seriously. I finally got down to Cootie Bug1 as an option and after having so many options rejected or wanting me to put a big number behind it I settled. The privacy policy I got by email when I registered as a user says to check out [] and click on Kids’ Safety so since I teach internet safety but have not run across getnetwise.org before I went and checked it out. While it does have some common sense information like teach your kids to not submit personal information without your permission the site carries more a tone of “teach your kids to be safe” without really providing all the information necessary. In one place it tell you that sites need to protect information for children under 13 years old but doesn’t make it clear in the privacy section that the rules governing privacy only apply to children under 13 giving parents a sense that they can control the personal information of their children until they are 18 – that they can request a website to remove or limit use of their child’s information and that a site would be required to do so. I think it is important to make sure parents know that they online protections for their children are until age 13. And they need to know that if their child is entering incorrect information (giving fictitious information to get an account) that the site may have no responsibility to the lying child or the parent. Many Terms of Use provisions indicate that a site’s liability ends when false information was used to access the site. There is a reason the online bullying issues come up in middle school. Sites do not have the obligation to inform parents of online activity after age 13. And if email is the only way they need to notify parents, that is easily gotten around by a kid who sets up their own yahoo or google account and they responds to the email intended for the parent. While the getnetwise.net site tells you that the parent is in control of a child’s personal information, the truth is that is not really the case. Just like in real life, a great way to have kids meet other kids and introduce themselves is to play games. I went to the stadium and played soccer with a number of players and after you’ve been playing a while, you get a sense of who is figuring out the game and who wants to interact. It can be a bit frustrating because there are preset questions like “Wanna be friends?” but when you go to the Answers section, there aren’t answers for questions like this. There are Yes and No options at the bottom of the initial list but I went to the Friends section when someone asked to be my friend because I thought I would find a more tailored “Friend” response there. There was “No Thank You” but not something that said “I’d love to be friends”. It seems a bit odd. Your character seems to be able to walk through some objects but must walk around others. I’ll explore more tomorrow.
 * Day 1 - The Adventure Begins**

Decided to spend some time really getting to know my way around so I spent some time at most of the areas and played the games I could find. (There are some rooms or buildings that will allow you to enter but don’t seem to have games to play there.) There are games that you can play against the computer and games you can play with other players. The unfortunate part of playing games with other people is that the site doesn’t give you directions. Sledding was less of a problem than Mancala. While most games are played with the mouse, in sledding you move your character with the arrow keys (would have been nice to know before I started.) I never learned to play Mancala so lack of directions is a bigger barrier there if you are going to play with others especially if you want them to be your friend. I built up some coins and so decided to buy some things from one of the catalogs that are at most of the sites. No dice. There was nothing in that catalog that I could buy unless I was a member. There are some catalogs that will let you buy a few things but the vast majority of things can only be bought if you are a member. For example, I decided to buy a pet but I couldn’t buy pet dishes, pet toys, etc., just the pet. Once I bought it, I got a message saying my pet was back at my igloo. I went to the igloo place on the map. A list of “Member” igloos appeared but my name was not there. I couldn’t find my igloo. I thought I had been at my igloo the first time I was on the site so I’ll have to see if I can find it again. I had a hard time getting on a server. When you log in, they ask you to select a server which they’ve named things like Big Foot, Bob Sled, Polar Bear or Antarctic, etc. The list has been different every time I’ve logged in. Today, I tried one server – after about 3 minutes no connection so I logged back in and tried another server – another 3 minutes and no connection, I tried another server and was finally able to connect. Took some time to play a game in the newspaper where you have a cube with a grid in it and you have to make sure that each row and each column has each color in it only once both down and across. I completed it but nothing happened. So something you actually have to think about to solve has no reward to it. It didn’t even say I was done. Nothing. Zero. Very frustrating. I bet not too many kids do that more than once. Went to the recycling center. The machinery is working, I can push some buttons but I don’t see anywhere to play a game or have interaction with other players.
 * Day 2 Member vs. Non-Member**
 * Day three**

I finally got so frustrated that I went to google to search for a Club Penguin tutorial. I had seen a tutorial when I first started but it didn’t tell you much. So, I now know how to find my igloo and I know there are a lot more games on this site than I thought. The tutorial includes 21 games – 7 of which are multi-player games you play with other players rather than the computer. This is helpful. Unfortunately, if you don’t know the game, this “tutorial” doesn’t help you. Here’s what it says about Mancala: Play this game with a friend when you go to the Book Room located above the Coffee Shop. Alternate turns with your opponent; the game ends when a player has no more stones in his/her side of the board. The player with the greatest number of stones in his/her Mancala is the winner. Click on the Mancala poster at the back of the Book Room to read more instructions on how to play. I’ll go back and see if I can learn anything from the poster. I can’t just jump there from this list. (Would have been nice.) The list does tell you what room the games are in but not what building the room is in so you still have to wander around to find things. The tutorial I came across is a wealth of information. I now realize that I have been on super safe servers until now that limit what you can say to other players. Those servers have pre-determined statements, questions and emoticons to use. Because of my problem with getting into servers when I logged on today, I am now on a server where I can type in my own comments. But I hit another glitch. Whenever I made a mistake in typing and hit the backspace key, the program booted me out and made me sign in again. Might be a browser issue (on Safari again today) but how annoying!!
 * Day 4 - My breaking point**

Capitalism is alive and well. Sooo many things you can’t buy in this game. Now that I have been around the site a little more, I now know that most often, you can’t buy things that come up at sites on the game or from the catalogs. It is really rare that you can buy things. I am pretty sure most parents would pay the fee just to have their kids not be annoyed by it. $5.95 a month to become a member. Will I cave? Probably not unless I have some real-life friends that will join me on the site. For the multi-player games, you have to wait for other players to come join you at a game. Sometimes there is no one else around or they walk away in the middle of a game. I see now why there are twice as many games you play against the computer. I went to a section that had books that looked like you could type your own parts of the story. I couldn’t. I think it may be a browser issue. I’m on Safari. I’ll try it on another browser another day to test it.
 * Day 5 - Get the Cash from your Coat and the Dollars from Your Dancing Shoes!**

I thought I’d try Club Penguin on Internet Explorer today since I was having some issues with Safari before. I can backspace when I type and not get booted out of the game – Score 1 for IE. Today when I joined the site I appeared in a clothing store. Until now, I was always standing in the center of town and had to choose where I wanted to go. Not sure what’s up with that. I looked in the clothing catalog. Boy, they know how to suck you in. They let you customize a t-shirt and then tell you “Oops” you have to be a member to purchase it. I’m really starting to think that this game – without membership - would be a great tool to teach kids about marketing and advertising. 86 items! And not one you can buy unless you are a member! You can’t even buy a shovel to help in the Community Garden. I can buy flags and backgrounds. That’s it. I know **they** are the first choice for every child because they are at the back of the catalog – sorry but the commercialism of this kind of stuff gets to me after a few days. I bought a flag and background so I can see what I can do with them. Tested them out – they add a background and a small flag icon to your trading card picture. Not very helpful as you don’t see these as you move around the game but better than nothing I suppose. I came across a secret passage that connects two areas of the game. That was neat. Even though you can move around the game using your map and clicking on where you want to go, it was nice to see a connection of the different areas by passageway. And then, the disappointment – to get a key to unlock another passageway, you have to play a certain game. When you get to the game, you find out that you can play level 1 but not levels 2 and 3 unless… you guessed it You’re a Member!! You need to play the 3rd level to be able to get the key. For parents who don’t want to pay for the site, don’t get your kids started. There are “Member Only” features at every turn which will make your child stop playing, guaranteed or bug you until you've made them a member. Took a trip to the books room to see if I can type in the books and write some of the story now that I’m using Internet Explorer. The glitches are gone. And I must not have been able to see the tutorial that comes up when you open the book when I was using Safari. With all parts working, the books are actually kind of interesting. There are different books you can choose from. Some that are books to read and some that are books to interact with. In the interactive books, faded words will appear on the page. You type those same words and the letters will get dark. At points in the story, you can choose how the story will come out like “ I went for a swim / walk”. They give you choices and what you type will be entered into the story. The story uses your penguin for a main character so that’s kind of cool. When you’re done, you have earned coins for your work. What I would have liked is to have been able to buy my story and keep it in my inventory to look at when I wanted or to be able to share it with my friends. I tell you, I should go work at Disney to get this game playing like it should!
 * Day 6 – The Battle of the Browsers**

I did a little of everything today (except buy things) and really enjoyed it. Now that I know all the pitfalls, (or maybe most? S ome?) I can avoid them. Don’t open the catalogs, just play the games, (read the tutorials), meet some friends, type in your comments (I really like this part which is available on the less secure servers – it gives people / penguins more character and you get to know them a little), look for secret passageways, take your pet for a walk… There is quite a lot you can do and I’m sure it is a lot more fun when your real life friends are playing at the same time you are. While I’m sure my comments seemed quite disparaging at times, I will give credit to Disney for creating an online play-space that is fun, has a variety of activities, gets kids familiar with the keyboard and mouse and seems to be quite secure. But… there is always a but… they could have done so much better. Still, my objective has been met. I wanted to know what kids who play this game experience and now I’ll have a sense of what my students are talking about when they say they play this game.
 * Day 7 – Final Chance**