Second Third Life

Education Within Virtual Worlds ( seminar Questions)

Foreman(2004) states that they can “simulate within the computer enhanced classroom the kind of situated learning experienced by students in the real world “

S, Does Second Life facilitate an environment that can be used for educational purposes ?

Sl is too fantastical and “out there” for real world lectures to take place in, what with all the flying people and avatars, it’s jsut very hard to take seriously. I know some poeple might enjoy the accessibility of being able to attend lectures without leaving your home, but unless the lecture and area of study is directed towards the humanities or social science, i think it’d be very hard to simulate a learning environment and take your lectures and classwork seriously.

(That being said, This was written before we had our own in SL lectures and I think for the most part they went very well, this could be due to the fact that we already have established a RL presence with one another and can be respectful when the prof is lecturing in second life, the only missing element was the voice)

Q: during the 1980s, early studies on videogames focused primarily on dangerous content, with the Surgeon General warning that young people were addicted “Body and soul” to dangerous machines. However, In recent  years, a growing body  of work makes more positive claims about the educational benefiets of games, Researchers have argued that video games enhance computer literacy, Visual Attention, and reaction time, meanwhile, in works  written for popular audiences,  it has been suggest that video games  teach players to become problem solvers.

 Not referring to Second Life, but all games in general, Do you find this to be true?

A: In terms of videogames, problem solving is a definite advantage. While i was growing up, My parents purchased several educational games ( Outnumbered, Reader rabbit, some shapes game on an old commodore) to develop my reading, Math and thinking skills at a very early age(4). By the time i got to kindergarten, i knew the entire alphabet could count to 20  and was beginning to learn how to add and subtract.

Problem solving is a simple process of defining the problem, taking inventory of whats availiable for you to use and then working with them to achieve an outcome. Games enforce the old problem solving task of trial and error but for most people, problem solving  skills can be strengthened by playing with virtual environments. second life, as a virtual environment  does offer a safe place to learn where no real world reprecussions can take place (for example, a mistake going wrong in surgery) but the learning value is solely in brain power and problem solving skills,  very few games can provide you with the technical expertise to perform these tasks.

Perhaps a good use of second life  could be for staging mock trials for lawyers…

on that note, if there were a computer interface that allows for practical skills to be practices while interfacing with second life, i think that would provide to be a huge asset for schools, med schools and technical institiutes.

Second Life has been able to amass a culture industry of its own. Digital entrepreneurs produce and sell goods and services. Artists use the power of the program to create and recreate works of art. Musicians can hold concerts to audiences across the planet.

I wrote that first quote in my essay for this class so Turnitin.com. please please please don’t flag me as plagarism, It’s my own work i promise.

Anyway,

In my honest opinion  Second Life is it’s own Culture industry, there is a seperate culture at work there in  the world, some people use the language of l33t, create works of art by sculpting vectors and  math equations. Build entire mansions with not a single tangible brick or 2x4. whatever is created in second life, is created for second life.

Now, that being said, there are some grey areas…

as mentioned in my essay, Real Life companies try to engage the users of second life in real world branding. They are using the world as an advertising platform and not contributing to it’s culture industry.  as I have found in my research, ventures like that fail. Like, really badly in second life.

Furthermore, Second life’s economy is not contained within the virtual world,  SL earnings can be converted into real dollars and vice versa. What is there to say about that? if you were running a business in second life, there would be no money put forth for resurces, because resources in a virtual world are essentially  free 1’s and 0’s  the manpower is your own ( or you might pay other people to do the work if you’re crafty enough) there are no tanglible brick and mortar stores. The only operating costs of a company would be the land rental, the rest is pure profit, which as mentioned, can be transferred to  real life funds.

I think it would be wrong to consider Second life part of  a real life culture industry but it does not entirely have a culture industry of it’s own, for  it’s culture industry is loosely connected to our own.

Ofelia from GimpGirl came in to lecture our virtual classroom a few weeks ago  and i was taken back by the ability virtual worlds ( and the internet for that matter)  have to unite and bring together people with a common element. it’s inspiring to think at a community of disabled people can come together for support. One of the most interesting aspects from the lecture  is that i was very proud for Ofelia in her decision to remain in a wheelchair within second life.  I think it’s great that  the wheelchair is a part of her RL identity and as such, she’s chosen to include it in her SL avatar. It’s really inspiring to see someone embrace their disability and use it to stand out in a sea of people. I really enjoyed that angle that GimpGirl has on empowering female disabled persons.

CSI: Second life

While up late last night I came across an episode of CSI New York where  they used second life to track down a suspect. They determined  his place of residence by chasing him around long enough in the game to trace his IP address to a physical location.

my question is , how did they determine his avatar’s name?

Mass Media In SL

In SL I visited CNN’s iReport island and the Reuters media hub. I was a little confused at first as to what to do at iReport island, it seems as if it was another corporate attempt to connect to the SL world without a thorough understanding of contributing to the SL culture industry. it’s a collage of environments pulled together without one central theme to tie them all together, the entire purpose of the island was kind of lost on me when I looked into a cave that resembled yoda’s hut on dagobah.

Reuters island was alot more news focused, with a scrolling banner like in times square that showed celebrity and technology news. it included areas for discussion of  current events, sadly,  although it was meant ot bring people together, there was no one there. it was a ghost town

the third place i visited was an actual news studio. Skynews is SL’s news network that creates broadcasts of actual news within the SL enviornment. I found two people from class and we took a picture at the anchor desk.

it’s interesting to note that SL citizens create their own version of CNN. the most authentic example of news reporting has been this sky news. the other news sources were merely a representation in branding

so how does SL mass media fit into the culture industry? SL users are now viewsers, where they simultaneously create and consume.

the real life news sources are simply trying to establish brand presence, which in my opinion, negatively  affects the culture industry of SL. For it is trying to incorporate RL branding in SL

Business in second life.

Everyone wants to make the big lindens, but the question is how? after hearing the lecture last week i decided to seek out places to “gold farm”. Gold farming is the act of camping, or doing menial tasks in order to gain money. after scouring the islands, i came across a place that paid you to camp.  you were paid 3 lindens for every half an hour you stayed there. I let my little SL avatar chill out for a few hours and as soon as I knew it, I had bagged 12 lindens.