While still a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Bruckman created one of her first Internet-based virtual communities as her doctoral dissertation project. In the virtual community, children construct games and get to know other kids from around the world. Meanwhile, they learn reading, writing and computer programming. Children help each other and have fun creating imaginative characters and scenarios. You could make an elephant that tells elephant jokes, or a robot that asks people what they think about nuclear power.
Many children have improved their writing skills, teachers report, and made a lot of new friends.
As an assistant professor in the College of Computing, Bruckman supervises and collaborates with doctoral degree students in their research projects. But this one operates in a three-dimensional graphical format. It targets middle and high school students who will learn by programming their own video games. It is more oriented to math and art, and computer programming is a common theme through both game construction kits. So it's good for different learning goals and appeals to different kids.