Croquet learning environments: extending the value of campus life into the online experience

Croquet is a broadband communications platform with a 3D user interface and peer-to-peer network architecture that provides educators with a new expressive meta-medium that is capable of replicating - and in certain ways, surpassing - the most valuable features of campus life. By comparing the campus to a collaborative "information space" where we are free to roam and "interoperate" at will, we underscore the role that proprietary restrictions - operating systems, applications, and formats - have played in making online learning a remote, cramped, and emotionally "flat" experience. From there, we examine the technical hurdles that must be overcome before our online learning experiences can approximate the vitality of campus-based, socially contextualized education.