When the concept of UIC is woven into a school curriculum that features virtual worlds then the playground can become an extension of the classroom instead of a break from it. This is because a virtual environment can be used to plant the idea that the student's mental imaginings can be superimposed over their surroundings, and the students then take that principle outdoors with them at break-time and test it for themselves, but under their rules instead of the teacher's. So how can virtual environments be used for the teaching of UIC principles? Sadly, youth are not quite as imaginative as they used to be. An overload of information has, in many cases, dulled the ability to use the mind to fill in the gaps. When everything is provided on-tap, there is less need to work stuff out for yourself, because it has already been done for you with pre-existing content. This is the double-edged sword of technological progress. Like the starting town in an online massively multiplayer game, the student may need to be given subtle direction that suggests how they should begin understanding the rules of that environment. Just as a purported photograph of a ghost is more credible if there is at least some kind of faint mist or shadow in the picture for the observer of that photo to scrutinize, a student may need some kind of semi-tangible prompt to be present in the virtual realm for their eyes to lock onto – like a 'Where's Waldo' find-the-hidden-guy image - so that they can begin processing what it might be and then draw further conclusions based on that initial assessment. Asking someone to find a boy in a stripy hat and sweater may be good training for the eyes but not for the imagination. The student would not need to visualize for themselves what Waldo looks like, because Waldo always looks like Waldo: this is the entire point of the challenge of finding him! If we want to encourage a learner to imagine new elements in a scene but at the same time give them a helpful starting point, then we can take a leaf out of kids sticker books, and represent the invisible elements in a User Generated Content-supporting virtual environment as shaped cut-outs!
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