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VOLCO Pilot Project
a Virtual OnLine Co-operative environment for children
VOLCO is an evolving Virtual OnLine Co-Operative environment constructed by children communicating between schools and across continents. The main project has been carried out through cSPACE, though the pilot was developed by Loraine Leeson while still at The Art of Change.
The VOLCO project came out of a recognition of the creative possibilities of Internet communications and the development of emergent virtual life. The initial idea was to combine the imaginations of hundreds of participants into the making of an evolving and previously unknown entity. VOLCO tapped into the energy of popular net culture - chat rooms, multi user domains and avatars - the desire to explore identity through fantasy. Imagination was used as the means through which co-operative relationships with others of different cultures and life experiences could be safely explored. This use of fantasy and interactivity was then applied to learning, offering students purposeful activities across a range of subject areas in the National Curriculum.
For the pilot stage of the project, Godwin Junior School in the London Borough of Newham was partnered with Davenport elementary school in North Carolina. The American school was part of a pioneering programme by the Thomas S. Kenan Institute for the Arts to use the arts across the curriculum as support for preferred styles of learning. VOLCO keyed in to this initiative, enabling children to participate through auditory, visual and physical means. The VOLCO pilot encouraged use of a range of digital technology together with traditional media to create fantasy characters, the results of which were displayed on a web site. The children chose partners, and found much in common with each others imaginary personae, all first inhabitants of this imaginary planet. Their task was to collectively begin the invention of all aspects of life on this new world. Instant messaging allowed for the brainstorming of ideas. These were then expressed through images and text and uploaded to begin the planet's online archives. Volcan partners finally met each other through video conferencing (the UK children used facilities at the Millennium Dome), and continued their real world partnerships through e-mail.
VOLCO was not developed to teach skills so much as flexibility and creativity. It aimed to familiarise participants with tools that could be used or learned as needed. It also set out to be transferable and capable of development into a downloadable resource for primary and secondary schools.
The materials produced during the pilot project by children at Godwin and Davenport schools became the first annals of the Volcan archives. As more young people have taken part, these have gradually built up to create a growing, evolving environment and increasingly complex virtual society, out of the children's imaginations. The pilot project set out to demonstrate to young people that if they can invent VOLCO together, they are also equipped to find new, co-operative ways of living on this planet.
The first stage of the VOLCO project was financially supported by Forest Gate and Plaistow SRB, the Arts Council of England, the London Arts Board and Domex.
