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Virtual Worlds are challenging to develop and deploy in small community settings. Our research into their measurement, design, and usability has allowed us to radically reduce the cost and footprint of a platform needed to support the collaborative creation of content, letting communities share their histories with both local and global audiences. Integrating this platform with an approach to virtual fieldwork lets communities explore authentic recreations of historical scenes, giving new perspectives on cultural heritage that stimulate reflection and understanding across the generations and enhancing the visitor experience by making new modes of interaction available for museums. This has enabled educational and cultural heritage bodies in Scotland to connect with new audiences and increase public participation in local heritage.
The project impacts by connecting people with technology through an interactive art project. Portable equipment ensures wide participation: people respond to, and interact with, virtual living creatures in an entertaining but instructive context. Bringing together human participants (able to intervene in the environment) with the virtual bugs (responsive to stimuli/their environment), people are challenged to consider cause and effect in the physical environment as well as their own inter-social relations. The impact which is cultural, imaginative and pedagogic is achieved through touch rather than via the normal emphasis on the communicated world.