Hi
I am having a wasted day. I'm in college. Any minute now the blasted builders are gonna start cutting bricks again. But my lit review has stalled and I feel the need to get in touch with the world itself. 1.3 million people are online right now. But I can't find any of them. I cruise around Princeton's empty campus. I watch some boring Metanomics videos on podcast, I catch up on the Obama victory (yay!) and I do what any sensible girl in this situation would do: I go shopping.
I use SL's search mechanism and search in shopping for hair. I hate my avatar's hair. I need cash first. I am delayed for a LONG time getting Lindens for this avatar. I thought you had to provide credit card details when you set up an account. So I just tried to buy dollars. The unhelpful error message doesn't tell me this. I try two different machines assuming that network firewall stuffy is to blame and then I figure it out, register the card. And wait.
I get to demo hair. That's pretty cool. A big floating demo tag is in the middle of the hair. I try three. I decide to get the first one. I go for platinum hair but a style that's straight forward enough. It cost about $1. Now I'm thinking clothing. I'd love wings and a splendid gown but I'm conscious of lag and also work. I probably wont go for that. Tropical Orchid is my first shop.
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
Thursday, September 04, 2008
4 September 2008 literature review
defining virtual worlds
im writing on my lit review. im meant to produce a draft of it. i am now planning on finishing within a year. i am so proud of my little working definition that i thought i would show it off: "Virtual worlds are provisionally defined as shared, interactive, immersive environments. First and foremost, virtual worlds are environments. They are referred to as places, spaces, locations and platforms. Whichever term is used (and environment is preferred in this instance), these environments have their own “automated rules that enable players to effect changes to them” – in other words, they have their own “physics” . Virtual worlds are interactive. Users (their actions channelled through characters, also known as “players” or “avatars”) interact with each other and the environment in real time (or as close to real-time as network latency might allow). Virtual worlds are shared. What this means is that the worlds themselves are multi-user and persist over time. It also tends to imply that some form of network connectivity is required. Finally, virtual worlds are immersive. They are defined as immersive rather than multimedia because a sense of immersion (or of being “present”) in an environment is deemed possible regardless of the medium used and in particular, regardless of whether that medium is solely text based or not ."
im writing on my lit review. im meant to produce a draft of it. i am now planning on finishing within a year. i am so proud of my little working definition that i thought i would show it off: "Virtual worlds are provisionally defined as shared, interactive, immersive environments. First and foremost, virtual worlds are environments. They are referred to as places, spaces, locations and platforms. Whichever term is used (and environment is preferred in this instance), these environments have their own “automated rules that enable players to effect changes to them” – in other words, they have their own “physics” . Virtual worlds are interactive. Users (their actions channelled through characters, also known as “players” or “avatars”) interact with each other and the environment in real time (or as close to real-time as network latency might allow). Virtual worlds are shared. What this means is that the worlds themselves are multi-user and persist over time. It also tends to imply that some form of network connectivity is required. Finally, virtual worlds are immersive. They are defined as immersive rather than multimedia because a sense of immersion (or of being “present”) in an environment is deemed possible regardless of the medium used and in particular, regardless of whether that medium is solely text based or not ."
Monday, September 01, 2008
1 Sept 2008 Club Penguin, ethics,
Started a logossohl club penguin account. Am here trying to write a lit review. Never mind the ethical concerns related to being a 28 year old adult. Thoughts of paedophilia are running through my mind. They didn't even ask my age.
So I have screens. i have to look up help because it doesnt occur to me that i should use the mouse instead of the arrow keys.
I have a nice purple penguin. Very cute. When you speak little speech bubbles appear about your head. You have actions that you can perform. And smileys. And there are games. Such as Hydro hopper. It's like Tetris but youre avoiding debris in the water on the back of the boat. I am currently on Level 3. It appeals to the platform game enthusiast in me. And because it's designed for kids, it's very easy! This is the best phd ever!
So I have screens. i have to look up help because it doesnt occur to me that i should use the mouse instead of the arrow keys.
I have a nice purple penguin. Very cute. When you speak little speech bubbles appear about your head. You have actions that you can perform. And smileys. And there are games. Such as Hydro hopper. It's like Tetris but youre avoiding debris in the water on the back of the boat. I am currently on Level 3. It appeals to the platform game enthusiast in me. And because it's designed for kids, it's very easy! This is the best phd ever!
1 Sept 2008 - congruence, epistemological congruence
I want to use this for the method chapter: if paradigms are commensurable... i want ot argue that they can at least be congruent as per weick's notion reported in vlaar, misq, 2008... yippeee! an answer to this question at last!
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
26 August 2008 - First Comment
I commented on my first Massively article today. They were talking about the fact that noone seems to know where SL is going. It's part of my lit review at the moment. So I wrote (impulsively and without thought though I never do leave comments or hardly evern in any case):
Virtual Worlds are nascent. Fancy word for new. Not all of them. True. But the Linden Lab vision is. The reason Linden don't know where it is going is because it is up to the users themselves. They are the customer. Linden responds (well, in theory at least). A world imagined and created by its residents. Each interest group within SL imagines the future of the platform in their own way based on the meaning Second Life has for them. Based on how it helps them to meet their goals. The future of Second Life then is contingent upon those who create it and the ways in which they imagine its future will unfold. That's what makes it. Well, that's my two cents anyway...
Virtual Worlds are nascent. Fancy word for new. Not all of them. True. But the Linden Lab vision is. The reason Linden don't know where it is going is because it is up to the users themselves. They are the customer. Linden responds (well, in theory at least). A world imagined and created by its residents. Each interest group within SL imagines the future of the platform in their own way based on the meaning Second Life has for them. Based on how it helps them to meet their goals. The future of Second Life then is contingent upon those who create it and the ways in which they imagine its future will unfold. That's what makes it. Well, that's my two cents anyway...
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
12 August - Conceptual Framework, research objective
Research objective "to investigate the social construction of virtual worlds and its implications for virtual worlds development, adoption and usage"
Was
"to explore the role of social factors in virtual worlds usage and development" [in the sense that people's perceptions are the product of their social interactions plus what they tell their own personal 'selves'] or (better I think) "to explore virtual worlds adoption and continued use in organizational contexts"
"to explore individual perceptions of virtual worlds, their social and experiential antecedents and their impact on virtual worlds development practices in organizational contexts"
"to explore the formation of individual perceptions/attitudes/beliefs regarding online VLEs in virtual worlds, the evolution of those perceptions/attitudes/beliefs over time and their impact on online VLE usage"
Was
"to explore the role of social factors in virtual worlds usage and development" [in the sense that people's perceptions are the product of their social interactions plus what they tell their own personal 'selves'] or (better I think) "to explore virtual worlds adoption and continued use in organizational contexts"
"to explore individual perceptions of virtual worlds, their social and experiential antecedents and their impact on virtual worlds development practices in organizational contexts"
"to explore the formation of individual perceptions/attitudes/beliefs regarding online VLEs in virtual worlds, the evolution of those perceptions/attitudes/beliefs over time and their impact on online VLE usage"
Monday, August 11, 2008
11 August - conceptual framework
- Interviews etc only tell you waht people think which is what you were telling them in the first place. Historicity.
Time
Form/function
Bevhaioural intention
Research objective: "to explore the role of social factors in virtual worlds usage and development" [in the sense that people's perceptions are the product of their social interactions plus what they tell their own personal 'selves'] or (better I think) "to explore virtual worlds adoption and continued use in organizational contexts"
I like that. But it may not be specific enough. I'm playing with 2 questions to match it. Freddy suggests a third question that deals with the results I hope to get.
Research objective was: "to explore individual perceptions of virtual worlds, their social and experiential antecedents and their impact on virtual worlds development practices in organizational contexts"
And before that: "to explore the formation of individual perceptions/attitudes/beliefs regarding online VLEs in virtual worlds, the evolution of those perceptions/attitudes/beliefs over time and their impact on online VLE usage."
Time
Form/function
Bevhaioural intention
Research objective: "to explore the role of social factors in virtual worlds usage and development" [in the sense that people's perceptions are the product of their social interactions plus what they tell their own personal 'selves'] or (better I think) "to explore virtual worlds adoption and continued use in organizational contexts"
I like that. But it may not be specific enough. I'm playing with 2 questions to match it. Freddy suggests a third question that deals with the results I hope to get.
Research objective was: "to explore individual perceptions of virtual worlds, their social and experiential antecedents and their impact on virtual worlds development practices in organizational contexts"
And before that: "to explore the formation of individual perceptions/attitudes/beliefs regarding online VLEs in virtual worlds, the evolution of those perceptions/attitudes/beliefs over time and their impact on online VLE usage."
Friday, August 08, 2008
8 August 2008 - Research Objective
I'm going to try for a one-a-day approach here.
I had: "to explore the formation of individual perceptions/attitudes/beliefs regarding online VLEs in virtual worlds, the evolution of those perceptions/attitudes/beliefs over time and their impact on online VLE usage."
Today I have made: "to explore individual perceptions of virtual worlds, their social and experiential antecedents and their impact on virtual worlds development practices in organizational contexts"
I had: "to explore the formation of individual perceptions/attitudes/beliefs regarding online VLEs in virtual worlds, the evolution of those perceptions/attitudes/beliefs over time and their impact on online VLE usage."
Today I have made: "to explore individual perceptions of virtual worlds, their social and experiential antecedents and their impact on virtual worlds development practices in organizational contexts"
Thursday, August 07, 2008
7 August 2008 - Symbolic Interactionism
Symbolic Interactionism (from Denzin)
- Born of american pragmatism (James, Dewey, Peirce, Mead)
- Also Cooley, Blumer
- Tortured history
- Many methods
"In its canonical form (Blumer 1969), it rests on three root assumptions: first, that 'human beings act toward things on the basis of the meanings that the things have for them' (p. 2); second, that the meanings of things arise out of the process of social interaction; and third, that meanings are modified through an interpretive process which involves self-reflective individuals symbolically itneracting with one another" - Denzin, p. xiv
Phil asks:
Niamh,
Can you tell us what the working research objective is and specifically what the purpose of the framework is?
Phil
The answer is:
the plot is:
* Development methodologies don’t work … Determinism, techno centric, rationalistic – lots of reasons… that’s not really the point… in the end they are "Not true" in a pragmatic sense - they don't work .
* They also wont work in light of cocreation, wisdom of crowds, move to open source etc - This democratization of innovation/creation… which is new and ill suited for existing methodologies and best seen in virtual worlds… the net is creating a new development/usage paradigm where usage comes before or with development … usage and development in parallel and distributed across communities
the argument is:
* what we know of usage, acceptance, adoption: (theory planned behaviour, reasoned action, TAM et al), all of these hint at a symbolic interactionist perspective [human beings act toward things on the basis of the meanings that the things have for them; the meanings of things arise out of the process of social interaction; meanings are modified through an interpretive process which involves self-reflective individuals symbolically interacting with one another - Denzin, p. xiv]
the study therefore:
* takes virtual worlds
* sees how they are constructed socially
* explores perceptions and usage and the relationship between the two [most beliefs research examines beliefs after adoption – this one maps the process]
* in order to inform development and design (something about the relationship between form, function and design)
* it uses educators because they have a longer than most history with these worlds and they see them as a solution to a problem and are very goal oriented making them interesting for this kind of study
how?:
* a survey is used to explore usage and development
* a classification is made
* archival analysis plus interview transcripts (from cases or field work or ethnography - not sure how to label this) etc are categorized using the classification and analyzed using grounded theory approach
this still fits loosely with:
RQ1 What are individual perceptions of virtual worlds, how do they change over time and what factors (e.g. human and technical) affect them? In particular, how do they relate to institutional perceptions?
RQ3 What is the nature of virtual world usage?
RQ4 What is the relationship between perceptions and usage?
As Phil pointed out, the research objective that I had was not sufficiently high level. I still haven’t come up with a new one. But I think you can see the idea… and that it means for now at least throwing out the institutional angle (RQ2)…
So why do I need a framework?
Pure grounded wouldn’t use one but this isn’t pure grounded. I need it to sensitize me for the discourse surrounding virtual worlds. I need something to structure the thesis itself and my own inquiry…
that's my stab
it changes daily
- another reason for a framework!
- Born of american pragmatism (James, Dewey, Peirce, Mead)
- Also Cooley, Blumer
- Tortured history
- Many methods
"In its canonical form (Blumer 1969), it rests on three root assumptions: first, that 'human beings act toward things on the basis of the meanings that the things have for them' (p. 2); second, that the meanings of things arise out of the process of social interaction; and third, that meanings are modified through an interpretive process which involves self-reflective individuals symbolically itneracting with one another" - Denzin, p. xiv
Phil asks:
Niamh,
Can you tell us what the working research objective is and specifically what the purpose of the framework is?
Phil
The answer is:
the plot is:
* Development methodologies don’t work … Determinism, techno centric, rationalistic – lots of reasons… that’s not really the point… in the end they are "Not true" in a pragmatic sense - they don't work .
* They also wont work in light of cocreation, wisdom of crowds, move to open source etc - This democratization of innovation/creation… which is new and ill suited for existing methodologies and best seen in virtual worlds… the net is creating a new development/usage paradigm where usage comes before or with development … usage and development in parallel and distributed across communities
the argument is:
* what we know of usage, acceptance, adoption: (theory planned behaviour, reasoned action, TAM et al), all of these hint at a symbolic interactionist perspective [human beings act toward things on the basis of the meanings that the things have for them; the meanings of things arise out of the process of social interaction; meanings are modified through an interpretive process which involves self-reflective individuals symbolically interacting with one another - Denzin, p. xiv]
the study therefore:
* takes virtual worlds
* sees how they are constructed socially
* explores perceptions and usage and the relationship between the two [most beliefs research examines beliefs after adoption – this one maps the process]
* in order to inform development and design (something about the relationship between form, function and design)
* it uses educators because they have a longer than most history with these worlds and they see them as a solution to a problem and are very goal oriented making them interesting for this kind of study
how?:
* a survey is used to explore usage and development
* a classification is made
* archival analysis plus interview transcripts (from cases or field work or ethnography - not sure how to label this) etc are categorized using the classification and analyzed using grounded theory approach
this still fits loosely with:
RQ1 What are individual perceptions of virtual worlds, how do they change over time and what factors (e.g. human and technical) affect them? In particular, how do they relate to institutional perceptions?
RQ3 What is the nature of virtual world usage?
RQ4 What is the relationship between perceptions and usage?
As Phil pointed out, the research objective that I had was not sufficiently high level. I still haven’t come up with a new one. But I think you can see the idea… and that it means for now at least throwing out the institutional angle (RQ2)…
So why do I need a framework?
Pure grounded wouldn’t use one but this isn’t pure grounded. I need it to sensitize me for the discourse surrounding virtual worlds. I need something to structure the thesis itself and my own inquiry…
that's my stab
it changes daily
- another reason for a framework!
Wednesday, August 06, 2008
6 August 2008 - Social Construction of Reality
The Social Construction of Reality
Reality and knowledge... the man in the street takes these things for granted.
"specific agglomerations of 'reality' and 'knowledge' pertain to specific social contexts, and... these relationships will have to be included in an adequate sociological analysis of these contexts" p. 15
the SOK (sociology of knowledge) will have to "deal with... the processes by which any body of knowledge comes to be socially established as 'reality'" p. 15
Sheler coined SOK
It is "concerned with the relationship between human thought and the social context within which it arises... the sociology of knowledge constitutes the sociological focus of... the existential determination (Seingebundenheit) of thought as such" p. 16
The relationship between ideas and the social, ideas and the historical, ideas and the political...
Three main intellectual antecedents: marxism (that man's consciousness is determined by his social being; ideology or ideas serving as weapons for social interest; false consciousness or thought that is alienated from the real social being of the thinker; substructure and superstructure or human activity and the world produced by that activity), nietzschean (less explicit), historicist (overwhelming relativity)
"The SOK... is the procedure by which the socio-historical selection of ideational contents is to be studied, it being udnerstood that the contents themselves are independent of socio-historical causation and thus inaccessible to sociological analysis" p. 20
Scheler
Human knowledge is given in society as an a priori: a "relative natural world view"
Mannheim (English speaker)
"More into ideology... the object of thought becomes progressively clearer with this accumulation of different perspectives on it" p. 22
Geiger
Ideology as socially distorted thought
Stark
go beyond ideology and look at "the social conditions of knowledge as such"
The SOK should look at what passes as knowledge in society: not theories or ideas as such... it tries not to exxagerate the importance of theorizing for society...
Schutz
What should the theoretical aspects of the SOK look like?
Concentrated on the "structure of the common-sense world of everyday life"
He is into the social distribution of knowledge
Reality and knowledge... the man in the street takes these things for granted.
"specific agglomerations of 'reality' and 'knowledge' pertain to specific social contexts, and... these relationships will have to be included in an adequate sociological analysis of these contexts" p. 15
the SOK (sociology of knowledge) will have to "deal with... the processes by which any body of knowledge comes to be socially established as 'reality'" p. 15
Sheler coined SOK
It is "concerned with the relationship between human thought and the social context within which it arises... the sociology of knowledge constitutes the sociological focus of... the existential determination (Seingebundenheit) of thought as such" p. 16
The relationship between ideas and the social, ideas and the historical, ideas and the political...
Three main intellectual antecedents: marxism (that man's consciousness is determined by his social being; ideology or ideas serving as weapons for social interest; false consciousness or thought that is alienated from the real social being of the thinker; substructure and superstructure or human activity and the world produced by that activity), nietzschean (less explicit), historicist (overwhelming relativity)
"The SOK... is the procedure by which the socio-historical selection of ideational contents is to be studied, it being udnerstood that the contents themselves are independent of socio-historical causation and thus inaccessible to sociological analysis" p. 20
Scheler
Human knowledge is given in society as an a priori: a "relative natural world view"
Mannheim (English speaker)
"More into ideology... the object of thought becomes progressively clearer with this accumulation of different perspectives on it" p. 22
Geiger
Ideology as socially distorted thought
Stark
go beyond ideology and look at "the social conditions of knowledge as such"
The SOK should look at what passes as knowledge in society: not theories or ideas as such... it tries not to exxagerate the importance of theorizing for society...
Schutz
What should the theoretical aspects of the SOK look like?
Concentrated on the "structure of the common-sense world of everyday life"
He is into the social distribution of knowledge
28 July 2008 - CFP
I found this fascinating. It's a hook for the phd that brings me more in line with Freddy's interests. It's sufficiently 'intellectual' and I just find it very compelling.
Journal of Information Sciences
"The optimal usage of distributed computing, data and knowledge resources has always been the means in order to tackle hard problems in fields, such as science, engineering and medicine. The SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence, Berkeley, USA) project is one prominent example in this category followed by the Human Genome project. It is no surprise that projects like e-Science, as recently launched by the K government, and the GRID computing are meant to create a computing paradigm, where “the computer is the network”. In all these approaches, however, the problem seems to be well defined and no synergies across participants from different cultural and professional backgrounds are requested in order to create a solution…
with the rise of the Social and Semantic Web, however, the answer of “what is a network” has been relaxed by the inclusion of users and user communities, which form social networks via computerized means. Ecosystems of humans and machines have been created where the involvement of human beings as creators and consumers of data and knowledge as well as in problem solving and learning tasks has been of paramount importance. Clusters of computers have been enhanced by clusters of humans. Formation of social groups follows the same principles of social behaviour, common interests, e.g., studies, hobbies, games. Wikipedia has been a success story of a collaborative environment for knowledge creation and sharing. Facebook, MySpace, del.icio.us, Flickr have been further success stories of social networking with digital media…This special issue explores the notion of this human-machine model of Collective Intelligence (CI) and its potential to become a new computing paradigm for creating solutions or strategies to tackle difficult problems, where the synergistic interactions of a group of people with diverse cultural and professional backgrounds are requested. This issue aims at studying the move from (system-) collected knowledge and intelligence, to collective knowledge and intelligence and exploring the challenge of boosting the collective IQ of organizations and society where both human and machine contribute actively to the resulting intelligence with each doing best what they do best."
Journal of Information Sciences
"The optimal usage of distributed computing, data and knowledge resources has always been the means in order to tackle hard problems in fields, such as science, engineering and medicine. The SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence, Berkeley, USA) project is one prominent example in this category followed by the Human Genome project. It is no surprise that projects like e-Science, as recently launched by the K government, and the GRID computing are meant to create a computing paradigm, where “the computer is the network”. In all these approaches, however, the problem seems to be well defined and no synergies across participants from different cultural and professional backgrounds are requested in order to create a solution…
with the rise of the Social and Semantic Web, however, the answer of “what is a network” has been relaxed by the inclusion of users and user communities, which form social networks via computerized means. Ecosystems of humans and machines have been created where the involvement of human beings as creators and consumers of data and knowledge as well as in problem solving and learning tasks has been of paramount importance. Clusters of computers have been enhanced by clusters of humans. Formation of social groups follows the same principles of social behaviour, common interests, e.g., studies, hobbies, games. Wikipedia has been a success story of a collaborative environment for knowledge creation and sharing. Facebook, MySpace, del.icio.us, Flickr have been further success stories of social networking with digital media…This special issue explores the notion of this human-machine model of Collective Intelligence (CI) and its potential to become a new computing paradigm for creating solutions or strategies to tackle difficult problems, where the synergistic interactions of a group of people with diverse cultural and professional backgrounds are requested. This issue aims at studying the move from (system-) collected knowledge and intelligence, to collective knowledge and intelligence and exploring the challenge of boosting the collective IQ of organizations and society where both human and machine contribute actively to the resulting intelligence with each doing best what they do best."
5 August 2008 - My So Called Life
My personal life is a shambles. Just went awol for a week. Again. Am contemplating going part time with the phd. Simply cannot tolerate being in this cell, box, cage. Solitary confinement. It isn't natural.
Quote
In real life, unlike in Shakespeare, the sweetness of the rose depends upon the name it bears. Things are not only what they are. They are, in very important respects, what they seem to be.
- Hubert H. Humphrey
Quote
"the world of seconds" - tb himself.. bet he's been cooking that up for months
Quote
In real life, unlike in Shakespeare, the sweetness of the rose depends upon the name it bears. Things are not only what they are. They are, in very important respects, what they seem to be.
- Hubert H. Humphrey
Quote
"the world of seconds" - tb himself.. bet he's been cooking that up for months
Friday, July 18, 2008
18 July 2008
One more response to my "can I use the lists questions": I don't mind it either. In fact, I wonder if any one could stop you since
the archives are public access (I found some threads by googling). In any
case, it is quite elegant and professional of you to ask.
There was JD and coke last night with NK. Am still drowning sorrows.
the archives are public access (I found some threads by googling). In any
case, it is quite elegant and professional of you to ask.
There was JD and coke last night with NK. Am still drowning sorrows.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
17 July 2008
Just had a meeting with Phil
He wants me to :get RO a context; read weick - bridging indiv/instit gap; change time q
justify why that ro (it cant be disjointed from lit); scope each question out; get karahanna misq paper and see what I can do with the framework in terms of extending it from the lit...
He also (accidentally) used the word perspective instead of perception. I like that word better. Though it seems more objective and cognitive. It is less cumbersome than perceptions, attitudes, beliefs...
He hadn't read the bit where I try to tie together the method to the questions, which would have been nice and maybe more productive... he wants me to work on the lit... when I want to work on archives.
I had some very warm responses on the archives:
"I'm sure the owners would not mind you mining; i used it to recruit. this one is bigger, not necessarily better educators@lists.secondlife.com, same owners.
I'll twitter him and ask him to look at ur posting."
"it's a public forum and everyone ought to stand behind his or her
words. that said, if you're not actually identifying anyone and just
using generic statistical analysis, there's definitely no reason you
shouldn't feel free to go ahead with your research."
"I think it's correct that you can do it.
Why not?
We need an open minded, collaborative and constructive approach.
I hope the manager of this mailing list will open contents archive not only
for you, but for the whole community at all.
maybe open only to the registred users; anyway, open :)"
Hmmm, the SLRL list minder wants to know what I'm up to... I hope he says ok.
He wants me to :get RO a context; read weick - bridging indiv/instit gap; change time q
justify why that ro (it cant be disjointed from lit); scope each question out; get karahanna misq paper and see what I can do with the framework in terms of extending it from the lit...
He also (accidentally) used the word perspective instead of perception. I like that word better. Though it seems more objective and cognitive. It is less cumbersome than perceptions, attitudes, beliefs...
He hadn't read the bit where I try to tie together the method to the questions, which would have been nice and maybe more productive... he wants me to work on the lit... when I want to work on archives.
I had some very warm responses on the archives:
"I'm sure the owners would not mind you mining; i used it to recruit. this one is bigger, not necessarily better educators@lists.secondlife.com, same owners.
I'll twitter him and ask him to look at ur posting."
"it's a public forum and everyone ought to stand behind his or her
words. that said, if you're not actually identifying anyone and just
using generic statistical analysis, there's definitely no reason you
shouldn't feel free to go ahead with your research."
"I think it's correct that you can do it.
Why not?
We need an open minded, collaborative and constructive approach.
I hope the manager of this mailing list will open contents archive not only
for you, but for the whole community at all.
maybe open only to the registred users; anyway, open :)"
Hmmm, the SLRL list minder wants to know what I'm up to... I hope he says ok.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
16 July - Nvivo 8
I just downloaded Nvivo 8. 30 day free trial. It looks complicated. Most people here rely on Excel. That makes very little sense to me. I watched some Nvivo tutorials and it can record sound and images and all sorts of other things. Possibly even video. A truly multimedia tool. I'm still reading about discourse analysis. Not entirely sure about the whole mailing list thing. I need to justify bounding it to just the mailing lists. I need to figure out how store the text, to import it. I think I need a framework to analyze it and I'm not sure what technique I want to use. Content analysis. Grounded theory. COnversation analysis (mostly not appropriate I think). A strain of discourse analysis? Ethnomethodological analysis? Is that even possible? It must be. The first virtual worlds were purely textual.
I'm having a sad day. I don't wanna really talk about it. But this journal ought to record stuff that's significant. Everything makes me nostalgic. Everything is a reminder. And this is not a good day generally. I just want it all to be over. The sadness. I want a life back. One where I don't spontaneously "leak". It's uncomfortable. Miserable. Much easier to think about data collection.
Ethics of data recording. I've asked the mailing list maintainers for permission to use the archives. Now I think I will just ask the list themselves...
"Hello everyone,
My name is Niamh ("Neave") O Riordan. I'm doing my phd in Second Life. Go me! Anyway, I would like to use these mailing lists as a source of data. I've contacted the list managers to ask permission to use the archives but they haven't responded... Rather than just doing it anyway, I thought I would ask the lists themselves if there is any reason why I should not do this. I want to mine the archives for themes and topics and opinions and issues. I mainly want to count things in order to see trends and patterns in topics over time. I have no interest in identifying anyone...
So, any thoughts??
Sincerely,
Niamh ("Neave") O Riordan
Business Information Systems
University College Cork, Ireland.
SL: Logos Sohl"
I am reading about approaches to narrative analysis in Wood on p. 104: approaches to narrative analysis include social constructionist, literary... blah blah... well, I am so into the social constructionist thing. But I don't quite know how to distinguish it from sybolic interactionism. And I'm not sure that I know much more than the label itself implies... and information processing and cognitive approaches...
Im reading about sociolinguistics and corpus analysis now. It looks more promising. But I know I need to nail down the purpose of the analysis before I can start. And I need to figure out how nvivo works... 30 day trial. And I need to do the stats stuff for tomorrow...
I'm having a sad day. I don't wanna really talk about it. But this journal ought to record stuff that's significant. Everything makes me nostalgic. Everything is a reminder. And this is not a good day generally. I just want it all to be over. The sadness. I want a life back. One where I don't spontaneously "leak". It's uncomfortable. Miserable. Much easier to think about data collection.
Ethics of data recording. I've asked the mailing list maintainers for permission to use the archives. Now I think I will just ask the list themselves...
"Hello everyone,
My name is Niamh ("Neave") O Riordan. I'm doing my phd in Second Life. Go me! Anyway, I would like to use these mailing lists as a source of data. I've contacted the list managers to ask permission to use the archives but they haven't responded... Rather than just doing it anyway, I thought I would ask the lists themselves if there is any reason why I should not do this. I want to mine the archives for themes and topics and opinions and issues. I mainly want to count things in order to see trends and patterns in topics over time. I have no interest in identifying anyone...
So, any thoughts??
Sincerely,
Niamh ("Neave") O Riordan
Business Information Systems
University College Cork, Ireland.
SL: Logos Sohl"
I am reading about approaches to narrative analysis in Wood on p. 104: approaches to narrative analysis include social constructionist, literary... blah blah... well, I am so into the social constructionist thing. But I don't quite know how to distinguish it from sybolic interactionism. And I'm not sure that I know much more than the label itself implies... and information processing and cognitive approaches...
Im reading about sociolinguistics and corpus analysis now. It looks more promising. But I know I need to nail down the purpose of the analysis before I can start. And I need to figure out how nvivo works... 30 day trial. And I need to do the stats stuff for tomorrow...
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
15 July 2008 Discourse Analysis
Went to oxegen last weekend. Had never been to a big music festival before. Needed to get away from it all. Made the decision on Friday. Or at least finally convinced Emma to go with me on Friday. SO went awol. Headed up with Emma. Had a good time. Am in danger of turning into an android. Need to get out more! Came back down Sunday night but spent the night in Waterford and came back to Cork monday evening.
Am reading about conversation and discourse analysis. They talk about "talk and text" but there is no turn taking in text. So I don't think conversation analysis will work. Discourse analysis looks more interesting. Still considering grounded theory based on symbolic interactionism (see Charmaz). But want to make an informed choice.
"The pragmatic functions of language" Wood, p. xiv...
Mytext:
Hampshire (1978) is quoted in Wood (p. xi) "Human beings... must pursue at least two ireeplaceable types of inquiry because of their own nature is embodied and self-conscious thinkers. One is an inquiry aiming at a purely theoretical understanding of their own physical functioning, in which human beings are seen as objects that confrom to universal laws of nature; the other is an inquiry aiming at an undesrtanding of their own thinking, and the thinking of others, in various normal social settings and in different languages. (p. 67)". Wood argues that the first concerns objects of inquiry as res naturam and the second as res artem. This study seeks to incorporate both by examining perception (the first) and how we solve problems (the second).
Am reading about conversation and discourse analysis. They talk about "talk and text" but there is no turn taking in text. So I don't think conversation analysis will work. Discourse analysis looks more interesting. Still considering grounded theory based on symbolic interactionism (see Charmaz). But want to make an informed choice.
"The pragmatic functions of language" Wood, p. xiv...
Mytext:
Hampshire (1978) is quoted in Wood (p. xi) "Human beings... must pursue at least two ireeplaceable types of inquiry because of their own nature is embodied and self-conscious thinkers. One is an inquiry aiming at a purely theoretical understanding of their own physical functioning, in which human beings are seen as objects that confrom to universal laws of nature; the other is an inquiry aiming at an undesrtanding of their own thinking, and the thinking of others, in various normal social settings and in different languages. (p. 67)". Wood argues that the first concerns objects of inquiry as res naturam and the second as res artem. This study seeks to incorporate both by examining perception (the first) and how we solve problems (the second).
Thursday, July 10, 2008
10 July 2008 conversation Analysis
Starting with a distraction: Mandela's 8 leadership rules from an article in Time:
Courage is not the absence of fear — it's inspiring others to move beyond it
Lead from the front — but don't leave your base behind
Lead from the back — and let others believe they are in front
Know your enemy — and learn about his favorite sport
Keep your friends close — and your rivals even closer
Appearances matter — and remember to smile
Nothing is black or white
Quitting is leading too
Reading Wooffitt: you got the idea that utterances perform actions (Sacks)and the idea that utterances are not an objective representation of reality(Gilbert and Mulkay). Both lead to an interest in language. In comes Chomsky and argues that the spoken and the ideal are not the same and that we should look at competence rather than performance. This contradicts Sacks who saw great order in spoken language.
""there are other approaches to the study of discourse and communciation... discourse analysis... discursive physchology, rhetorical psychology, speech act theory, critical discourse analysis and Foucauldian forms of discourse analysis..." p. 1
The plot thickens: conversation analysis is related to ethnomethodology and both appear in a handbook of symbolic interactionism (remember I was interested in this a few days ago)... I can't imagine why... more questions...
The problem with the way you're meant to do research: making all decisions according to the research goal is that the goal itself is shaped by the decisions and one needs information to make decisions which a student of research does not have up front. This is why it's slow and tends to go wrong.
Courage is not the absence of fear — it's inspiring others to move beyond it
Lead from the front — but don't leave your base behind
Lead from the back — and let others believe they are in front
Know your enemy — and learn about his favorite sport
Keep your friends close — and your rivals even closer
Appearances matter — and remember to smile
Nothing is black or white
Quitting is leading too
Reading Wooffitt: you got the idea that utterances perform actions (Sacks)and the idea that utterances are not an objective representation of reality(Gilbert and Mulkay). Both lead to an interest in language. In comes Chomsky and argues that the spoken and the ideal are not the same and that we should look at competence rather than performance. This contradicts Sacks who saw great order in spoken language.
""there are other approaches to the study of discourse and communciation... discourse analysis... discursive physchology, rhetorical psychology, speech act theory, critical discourse analysis and Foucauldian forms of discourse analysis..." p. 1
The plot thickens: conversation analysis is related to ethnomethodology and both appear in a handbook of symbolic interactionism (remember I was interested in this a few days ago)... I can't imagine why... more questions...
The problem with the way you're meant to do research: making all decisions according to the research goal is that the goal itself is shaped by the decisions and one needs information to make decisions which a student of research does not have up front. This is why it's slow and tends to go wrong.
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
8 July 2008
More Holsti: "categories should reflect the purposes of the research, be exhaustive, be mutually exclusive, independent, and be derived from a single classification principle."
So based on my RQs, what are my variables (conceptual definitions) and what are my operators (operational definitions)? You see I don't have these yet and I now realize my research objective and questions will not do at all. I haven't properly thought out the relationship between them and the methods I want to use, largely because I just don't know enough about the methods. Not that I couldn't have seen this coming. I know Pat talked about conceptual and operational definitions twelve months ago.
I've come across Bales 1950 categories for verbal interaction. I may get the book on inter library loan. It looks very promising. Maybe. Interaction Process Analysis. An alternative is sign process analysis. A Leary approach.
So based on my RQs, what are my variables (conceptual definitions) and what are my operators (operational definitions)? You see I don't have these yet and I now realize my research objective and questions will not do at all. I haven't properly thought out the relationship between them and the methods I want to use, largely because I just don't know enough about the methods. Not that I couldn't have seen this coming. I know Pat talked about conceptual and operational definitions twelve months ago.
I've come across Bales 1950 categories for verbal interaction. I may get the book on inter library loan. It looks very promising. Maybe. Interaction Process Analysis. An alternative is sign process analysis. A Leary approach.
Monday, July 07, 2008
7 July 2008 - Content Analysis
I'm reading about content analysis... something about categories... do i need my conceptual framework now?... can i derive it from data... is that grounded theory... how do the two differ... holsti stays objectivity, system and generality are common to most definitions of content analysis... objectivity means clear rules and procedures... if others can follow my path and have similar findings, well, that is a test of objectivity.
Objectivity
I'm thinking of a content analysis of the educators and researchers mailing lists. why them? interlinked. managed by linden labs. much mentioned sources of information. very active lists. there are associated wikis. not sure how much used these are. also there are the personal blogs of the second life celebs. why not those? i suppose i like the conversation of the mailing lists versus the broadcast nature of blogs (though with comments this is not always the case) and of wikis. wikis are also snapshots. hard to see the edit history.
Sytem
"Systematic means that the inclusion and exclusion of content or categories is done according to consistently applied rules. This requirement clearly eliminates analyses in which only materials supporting the investigator's hypotheses are admitted as evidence"... hmmm, this is a problem. Or is it? Yeah sure, most on these boards are in favour of virtual worlds. But I'm interested in use rather than non-use. It goes back to the questions.
The research objective derived is to explore the formation of individual perceptions/attitudes/beliefs regarding online VLEs in virtual worlds, the evolution of those perceptions/attitudes/beliefs over time and their impact on online VLE usage. Research questions have been derived from the research objective. The research questions are:
1. What are individual perceptions of virtual worlds, how do they change over time and what factors (e.g. human and technical) affect them? In particular, how do they relate to institutional perceptions?
2. What are institutional perceptions of virtual worlds, how do they change over time and what factors (e.g. human and technical) affect them? In particular, how do they relate to individual perceptions?
3. What is the nature of virtual world usage?
4. What is the relationship between perceptions and usage?
Maybe I need to look at usage and non-usage... continuance and 'stoppance'... therefore I need more sources than these lists... are there mailing lists for non-adopters? I guess there are not.
Generality
"a datum about communication content is meaningless until it is related to at least one other datum. The link between these is represented by some form of theory. Thus all content analysis is concerned with comparison"... Ah, I have no idea what this means for me, right now. But it's good to know.
Quantitative? Hmm. Does it have to be
Manifest versus latent content? Is CA restricted to the former or not?
When to use CA: Woot!
"The investigator who has direct access to his subjects may prefer to collect his data through some form of content analysis. Despite their very real merits... even the best experiment of survey studies the subject and his responses in a highly artificial situation... Especially when it is important to get repeated measures of the subjects' values, attitudes, and the like over a period of time, and if one has reason to believe that continued interaction between analyst and subject may affect the nature of responses, then content analysis of the subject's statements may be a useful way to gather the required data. An important feature of content analysis is that it is a 'non-reactive' or 'unobtrusive' research technique" p. 16
Objectivity
I'm thinking of a content analysis of the educators and researchers mailing lists. why them? interlinked. managed by linden labs. much mentioned sources of information. very active lists. there are associated wikis. not sure how much used these are. also there are the personal blogs of the second life celebs. why not those? i suppose i like the conversation of the mailing lists versus the broadcast nature of blogs (though with comments this is not always the case) and of wikis. wikis are also snapshots. hard to see the edit history.
Sytem
"Systematic means that the inclusion and exclusion of content or categories is done according to consistently applied rules. This requirement clearly eliminates analyses in which only materials supporting the investigator's hypotheses are admitted as evidence"... hmmm, this is a problem. Or is it? Yeah sure, most on these boards are in favour of virtual worlds. But I'm interested in use rather than non-use. It goes back to the questions.
The research objective derived is to explore the formation of individual perceptions/attitudes/beliefs regarding online VLEs in virtual worlds, the evolution of those perceptions/attitudes/beliefs over time and their impact on online VLE usage. Research questions have been derived from the research objective. The research questions are:
1. What are individual perceptions of virtual worlds, how do they change over time and what factors (e.g. human and technical) affect them? In particular, how do they relate to institutional perceptions?
2. What are institutional perceptions of virtual worlds, how do they change over time and what factors (e.g. human and technical) affect them? In particular, how do they relate to individual perceptions?
3. What is the nature of virtual world usage?
4. What is the relationship between perceptions and usage?
Maybe I need to look at usage and non-usage... continuance and 'stoppance'... therefore I need more sources than these lists... are there mailing lists for non-adopters? I guess there are not.
Generality
"a datum about communication content is meaningless until it is related to at least one other datum. The link between these is represented by some form of theory. Thus all content analysis is concerned with comparison"... Ah, I have no idea what this means for me, right now. But it's good to know.
Quantitative? Hmm. Does it have to be
Manifest versus latent content? Is CA restricted to the former or not?
When to use CA: Woot!
"The investigator who has direct access to his subjects may prefer to collect his data through some form of content analysis. Despite their very real merits... even the best experiment of survey studies the subject and his responses in a highly artificial situation... Especially when it is important to get repeated measures of the subjects' values, attitudes, and the like over a period of time, and if one has reason to believe that continued interaction between analyst and subject may affect the nature of responses, then content analysis of the subject's statements may be a useful way to gather the required data. An important feature of content analysis is that it is a 'non-reactive' or 'unobtrusive' research technique" p. 16
Friday, July 04, 2008
4 July 2008 Content analysis
So I'm looking at content analysis. It's an escape from a framework and needed before the survey. I'm going to try to download a demo of Nvivo, which has supplanted NUDIST. I'm also investigating AnSWR, which is a text only version. It has the advantage of being free but the multimedia aspects of Nvivo seem compelling given my interest in a graphical, audio based, text based virtual world. I'm watching an Nvivo tutorial (http://download.qsrinternational.com/Document/NVivo8/NVivo8-Introducing-NVivo.htm) and I'm also reading about code books on the AnSWR webpage. Hmmm. Codes. Study Codebooks.
Thursday, July 03, 2008
3 July 2008 - Anthropology
Anthropology
- Holistic study of humans
- Ethnography: primary method and the resulting text (Malinowski's; Boas promoted it)
- Four fields approach: physical, archaeological, linguistic, social/cultural
- Context, comparison, experience (participant observation): important
- Recently, local emphasis conjoined with interest in global too
Cultural Anthropology
- A reaction to culture versus nature opposition and to ethnology
- Culture is human nature
- Independent invention v. diffusionism (or both)
- C20th people argue that cultures are not all on the same evolutionary path
- Focused on symbols and values
Social Anthropology
- Malinowski and Radcliffe-Brown's students created it in the UK
- Focuses on social groups and institution rather than symbols and values
- More interested in cultural relativism than in cultural comparison
Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis: language influences thought
- Holistic study of humans
- Ethnography: primary method and the resulting text (Malinowski's; Boas promoted it)
- Four fields approach: physical, archaeological, linguistic, social/cultural
- Context, comparison, experience (participant observation): important
- Recently, local emphasis conjoined with interest in global too
Cultural Anthropology
- A reaction to culture versus nature opposition and to ethnology
- Culture is human nature
- Independent invention v. diffusionism (or both)
- C20th people argue that cultures are not all on the same evolutionary path
- Focused on symbols and values
Social Anthropology
- Malinowski and Radcliffe-Brown's students created it in the UK
- Focuses on social groups and institution rather than symbols and values
- More interested in cultural relativism than in cultural comparison
Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis: language influences thought
Monday, May 26, 2008
26 May 2008 Statistics Course
I've started a stats course today. It is fascinating. It is trying. But it is excellent. The lecturer is so well prepared. The tutorials are wonderful. The content is just so relevant.
I'm thinking about conducting surveys and cases simultaneously. Run a survey to identify and classify categories of adopters. Then do a case on each and at points when the case moves to a new phase or level of usage to administer the survey to their peers. To improve generalizatbility. It may be too much for one study and the numbers might not be big enough. But for difference based research questions it could be very fascinating.
I submitted the book chapter. Moments after clicking send I remembered two comments that I never removed. And I made notes of what I'd like to change for the next version. I'd like to add something about social software. Was under the impression that I'd uncovered something new. But as I look at my available labels, social software is looking out at me. What is that all about?
I'm thinking about conducting surveys and cases simultaneously. Run a survey to identify and classify categories of adopters. Then do a case on each and at points when the case moves to a new phase or level of usage to administer the survey to their peers. To improve generalizatbility. It may be too much for one study and the numbers might not be big enough. But for difference based research questions it could be very fascinating.
I submitted the book chapter. Moments after clicking send I remembered two comments that I never removed. And I made notes of what I'd like to change for the next version. I'd like to add something about social software. Was under the impression that I'd uncovered something new. But as I look at my available labels, social software is looking out at me. What is that all about?
Saturday, May 24, 2008
24 May 2008 Methodology
I am trying to write the methodology chapter. I am working by answering each question as it presents itself. This is a good approach. Very reassuring to put yesses and nos beside things but I find myself wnating more information before answering any question. For instance can I ahve propositions in a pluraslist strategy? I'm sure I can. At a particular part of it. Welll, how many parts do I have? Survey and case and blog analysis somewhere. Ok well, what is each part meant to achieve? Agghhhhh.
I think what P was suggesting when he said that I was covering the material but writing like a first year was that I was keeping the story telling part of the literature to myself. I think I'm realizing that part of being an academic is including your own interpretation of the facts with them. You've got to tell a story around what you're talking about. As the Galway reviewer said: it's nice to know but not need to know because I'm not providing (at the moment) the so what part.
I think what P was suggesting when he said that I was covering the material but writing like a first year was that I was keeping the story telling part of the literature to myself. I think I'm realizing that part of being an academic is including your own interpretation of the facts with them. You've got to tell a story around what you're talking about. As the Galway reviewer said: it's nice to know but not need to know because I'm not providing (at the moment) the so what part.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
20 May 2008 Notes on Going Teaching
I was thinking about rolling out part or all of the ecommerce module I teach using Second Life. So I was asked to assess the feasibility of it. I made notes. This is what this post is about.
I decided against the approach based on a number of issues.
First and foremost, though the idea would have given me an incredible amount of structure, I was hesitant. There were about three reasons for this: to hang a phd on something never done before seems an unnecessarily risky business. It seems to me that virtual worlds are wonderful tools for collaboration and team work, which the phd would not have permitted. Also, I doubted that I could deliver the innovative tools that would be needed to truly distinguish the study given my own inexperience. We have to get beyond in world slide shows if we really are to deliver the potential of virtual worlds for education, I think.
Then there were some technical issues.
- a lengthy treatise from technical staff about the security and ethical issues to consider (e.g. having students sign up for SL terms of service for instance, copyright issues etc)
- network configuration may have hampered my efforts
- not one lab in this department meets the minimum spec (in terms of graphics card which is a bit of a deal-breaker)
There were commentaries from others about the difficulties of doing this (even for very senior staff members). It also occured to me that for every activity in SL I would also need a backup plan in case the grid was down or in case there were other problems. There would be issues around assessing students in world. Preventing
The notes I took were as follows:
Technical issues
- Lag? Dependent on number of avs in one location or not?
- Running SL in labs? Can it be done at all?
- Need to test in labs but don't have download priviledge (or update)
- Bandwidth?
Response:
"I have heard of no 'bandwidth issues' there will be limited lag on a
10mb connection of most older ethernet. the real issue is that you
can only have, unless this has changed, a limited number of
connections from one ip address. most labs are arranged with 1 real
ip address and the rest of the computers use nat through that
address. many concurrent connections will be rejected by sl. so lab
architecture is more important than bandwidth."
- Audio, video, machinima? I'll have to learn to design all of these.
- Recording text and sound and image? I'll need to trace everything. What about SL terms of service? The copying of chat trascripts for instance, is a violation.
- Having backups or alternative platforms for when SL isn't good
- Griefers - serious issue. Need an island.
- Student age - will not have to use teen grid...
Legal Issues
- SL Terms of Service
"I believe that MIT had very similar concerns, and chose to work with
the New Media Consortium to "lease" the land from NMC rather than
"purchase" the land from Linden Lab directly. By doing so, NMC took
on the legal liability rather than MIT, if I remember correctly from
one of Philip Long's presentations about their Student Design contest
in SL (page is at https://wikis.mit.edu/confluence/display/sldc/Home
but hm, it looks like they put some of the information behind a
private log in)." 1 may 2008 Educators Digest mailing
Commercial issues
- How do students buy land?
- Costs:
Island is http://blog.secondlife.com/2008/04/09/details-on-the-q2-2008-island-price-change/ 700 dollars set up
Not sure about maintenance fees
Teaching issues
- What tools exist (e.g whiteboards)
- Sloodle - what's that like?
- Guidelines (samples)
Social Issues
- "College students barely make it into the demographic that is really comfortable here."
- Idea that SL is an adult world
IDT Issues
- Selling it to COmmerce
- Work with marketing people?
Design issues
"Is there a clearly identify community of SL users on your campus, such
as a SL Users Group or a group of faculty and students of substantive
number that are using SL to demonstrable and continuing success?
the design principle is; Design to the real needs of the
real community. If there is no community, there is no design.
Develop and sponsor a users group first to develop that community.
if there is, then it really does not matter too much what you build,
as they might use it. if there is not such a group, then what are you
doing in sl organizationally that would require a campus build? "
"Designing a sim for a university is a lot like designing a course in that you need to first identify your goals and objectives. What is your purpose for being in Second Life? What do you hope to accomplish? You also want some sort of assessment to determine whether or not you have achieved those goals. This might be a notecard drop or sensors to pull statistics.
When designing the islands for my university, I traveled far and wide around SL looking at what other colleges and universities had done. I got lots of ideas on ways we could contribute to the SL learning community. Again, as with a RL course, we storyboarded out the area and brainstormed ideas of what we could do. Developing was a snap after that."
Ideas
- Modular continuous assessment
- production of machinima
- collaboration
- treasure hunts
- using term 1 tutorials to teach
- using term 2 tutorials to implement modular continuous assessment
- how structured to be?
- implement strategies?
- Need evaluation instruments, objectives
- Using BOTS??
- Sloodle, Moodle, noodling?
- Something about natives (millennials) learning faster and being more comfortable.
- It seems crazy to me to work solo on this, like doing a solo open source project and writing it up
I decided against the approach based on a number of issues.
First and foremost, though the idea would have given me an incredible amount of structure, I was hesitant. There were about three reasons for this: to hang a phd on something never done before seems an unnecessarily risky business. It seems to me that virtual worlds are wonderful tools for collaboration and team work, which the phd would not have permitted. Also, I doubted that I could deliver the innovative tools that would be needed to truly distinguish the study given my own inexperience. We have to get beyond in world slide shows if we really are to deliver the potential of virtual worlds for education, I think.
Then there were some technical issues.
- a lengthy treatise from technical staff about the security and ethical issues to consider (e.g. having students sign up for SL terms of service for instance, copyright issues etc)
- network configuration may have hampered my efforts
- not one lab in this department meets the minimum spec (in terms of graphics card which is a bit of a deal-breaker)
There were commentaries from others about the difficulties of doing this (even for very senior staff members). It also occured to me that for every activity in SL I would also need a backup plan in case the grid was down or in case there were other problems. There would be issues around assessing students in world. Preventing
The notes I took were as follows:
Technical issues
- Lag? Dependent on number of avs in one location or not?
- Running SL in labs? Can it be done at all?
- Need to test in labs but don't have download priviledge (or update)
- Bandwidth?
Response:
"I have heard of no 'bandwidth issues' there will be limited lag on a
10mb connection of most older ethernet. the real issue is that you
can only have, unless this has changed, a limited number of
connections from one ip address. most labs are arranged with 1 real
ip address and the rest of the computers use nat through that
address. many concurrent connections will be rejected by sl. so lab
architecture is more important than bandwidth."
- Audio, video, machinima? I'll have to learn to design all of these.
- Recording text and sound and image? I'll need to trace everything. What about SL terms of service? The copying of chat trascripts for instance, is a violation.
- Having backups or alternative platforms for when SL isn't good
- Griefers - serious issue. Need an island.
- Student age - will not have to use teen grid...
Legal Issues
- SL Terms of Service
"I believe that MIT had very similar concerns, and chose to work with
the New Media Consortium to "lease" the land from NMC rather than
"purchase" the land from Linden Lab directly. By doing so, NMC took
on the legal liability rather than MIT, if I remember correctly from
one of Philip Long's presentations about their Student Design contest
in SL (page is at https://wikis.mit.edu/confluence/display/sldc/Home
but hm, it looks like they put some of the information behind a
private log in)." 1 may 2008 Educators Digest mailing
Commercial issues
- How do students buy land?
- Costs:
Island is http://blog.secondlife.com/2008/04/09/details-on-the-q2-2008-island-price-change/ 700 dollars set up
Not sure about maintenance fees
Teaching issues
- What tools exist (e.g whiteboards)
- Sloodle - what's that like?
- Guidelines (samples)
Social Issues
- "College students barely make it into the demographic that is really comfortable here."
- Idea that SL is an adult world
IDT Issues
- Selling it to COmmerce
- Work with marketing people?
Design issues
"Is there a clearly identify community of SL users on your campus, such
as a SL Users Group or a group of faculty and students of substantive
number that are using SL to demonstrable and continuing success?
the design principle is; Design to the real needs of the
real community. If there is no community, there is no design.
Develop and sponsor a users group first to develop that community.
if there is, then it really does not matter too much what you build,
as they might use it. if there is not such a group, then what are you
doing in sl organizationally that would require a campus build? "
"Designing a sim for a university is a lot like designing a course in that you need to first identify your goals and objectives. What is your purpose for being in Second Life? What do you hope to accomplish? You also want some sort of assessment to determine whether or not you have achieved those goals. This might be a notecard drop or sensors to pull statistics.
When designing the islands for my university, I traveled far and wide around SL looking at what other colleges and universities had done. I got lots of ideas on ways we could contribute to the SL learning community. Again, as with a RL course, we storyboarded out the area and brainstormed ideas of what we could do. Developing was a snap after that."
Ideas
- Modular continuous assessment
- production of machinima
- collaboration
- treasure hunts
- using term 1 tutorials to teach
- using term 2 tutorials to implement modular continuous assessment
- how structured to be?
- implement strategies?
- Need evaluation instruments, objectives
- Using BOTS??
- Sloodle, Moodle, noodling?
- Something about natives (millennials) learning faster and being more comfortable.
- It seems crazy to me to work solo on this, like doing a solo open source project and writing it up
Thursday, May 08, 2008
08-05-2008
"Despite our best efforts, something unexpected has gone wrong."
So I can't log in. So much for getting to grips with building. Hmmm. Am having an off day.
So I can't log in. So much for getting to grips with building. Hmmm. Am having an off day.
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
07 05 2008 Building
07 05 2008
Building sandbox greeter etiquette graphics card driver error I am reluctant to do this. This building thing. I'm not sure if I'm afraid that I wont be able to (which makes very little sense) or if I'm unsure of committing to buying land. I don't know what the reluctance stems from. But I'm doing it anyway.
I'm in my lab. A PC is logged on. My av is sitting on a deckchair in 'cork' (http://slurl.com/secondlife/Cork/169/189/41) waiting for me to start. Chapter 7 Second Life Official Guide starts with "If you have used other 3D modeling software in the past..." There is so much out there that I am unfamiliar with. They mention maya and lightwave. I'm looking up Safari books. I think I need to find a public sandbox. Fnding one is another thing. so I search for a popular place. most are flea markets, free lindens places, skin, shape and clothes shops. I listen to some Jazz (http://slurl.com/secondlife/Jades%20Jazz%20Island/16/201/32). I search All for public sandbox. I go to the first one on the list (the second is a mature content sandbox). I miss the jazz. I liked the jazz. It would be cool to bring someone to the jazz, I think to myself.
So now I'm at a public sandbox (http://slurl.com/secondlife/Solang/173/13/34). A Public sandbox greeter tells me:
[3:29] Public Sandbox Greeter: Please Clean Up after yourself before leaving. Your mother does not work here!
[3:30] Public Sandbox Greeter: The Public Sandbox is fairly large. Please don't build in this greeting area.
[3:30] Public Sandbox Greeter: Use of Cagers and Orbiters are PROHIBITED! Report Violations to PSG members.
[3:31] Public Sandbox Greeter: Welcome to the Public Sandbox!
[3:32] Public Sandbox Greeter: No Selling! The Public Sandbox is NOT a Mall. Please do NOT set up shop here!
[3:32] Public Sandbox Greeter: The Public Sandbox is fairly large. Please don't build in this greeting area.
[3:33] Public Sandbox Greeter: Please Clean Up after yourself before leaving. Your mother does not work here!
[3:34] Public Sandbox Greeter: Use of Cagers and Orbiters are PROHIBITED! Report Violations to PSG members.
[3:34] Public Sandbox Greeter: This is a PG area. Please NO Nudity, Indecency, Violence and/or Profanity.
[3:35] Public Sandbox Greeter: Sound effects can be fun, too much can get annoying. Sound-spamming is unwelcome.
[3:36] Public Sandbox Greeter: No Selling! The Public Sandbox is NOT a Mall. Please do NOT set up shop here!
[3:36] Public Sandbox Greeter: Combat is NOT allowed here! Please find other PvP or Combat Places for that!
I need to get permission to use chat logs...
While this is happening, I'm looking up F1 help which very quickly tells me how to create a Landmark for the sandbox (basically a bookmark). It's just World | Create landmark here.
Shite, the screen on the PC has just gone blank. The resolution is ruined. A message says "The ialmrnt 5 driver has stopped working normally. Save your work and reboot the system to restore full display functionality. The next time you reboot the machine a dialog will be displayed giving you a chance to upload data about this failure to Microsoft". Some web searching reveals that I should update graphics card drivers. I can probably do this myself. But I prefer to ask tech support to do this for me. Not much point continuing until I sort this out. One hour spent on nothing. There is no point continuing until I sort this out. And anyway, I'm meeting a student at 12.
Ooh, blogger just crashed. Again. SO glad I'm working in notepad too!!
2pm
I had to look up a way to identify the graphics card (Intel 82945G Express Chipset). I typed dxdiag into Run. I now have to double check the operating system (XP Professional). I'm not sure if I should be updating with a generic Intel driver or a Dell driver. This is not fun. The labs are probably different again. And I still need to talk to Bob about testing in the labs. All this before I even create my first prim!
5.40pm
I've contacted Bob at Phil's request. He says support for SL in the labs is unlike. he points me to a useful 30 minute video. Very cautionary clip. Legal issues. IP issues. Copyright issues. The word litigation comes up a lot. Now I happen to be one the few people I know who still concerns herself with copyright infringement but it hadn't occured to me that by forcing students to use SL, I was forcing them to accept user agreements and terms of service that have implications for their own IP and I also hadn't considered that even by using this blogging tool, my information can be used by Blogger. That's a scary thought.
Building sandbox greeter etiquette graphics card driver error I am reluctant to do this. This building thing. I'm not sure if I'm afraid that I wont be able to (which makes very little sense) or if I'm unsure of committing to buying land. I don't know what the reluctance stems from. But I'm doing it anyway.
I'm in my lab. A PC is logged on. My av is sitting on a deckchair in 'cork' (http://slurl.com/secondlife/Cork/169/189/41) waiting for me to start. Chapter 7 Second Life Official Guide starts with "If you have used other 3D modeling software in the past..." There is so much out there that I am unfamiliar with. They mention maya and lightwave. I'm looking up Safari books. I think I need to find a public sandbox. Fnding one is another thing. so I search for a popular place. most are flea markets, free lindens places, skin, shape and clothes shops. I listen to some Jazz (http://slurl.com/secondlife/Jades%20Jazz%20Island/16/201/32). I search All for public sandbox. I go to the first one on the list (the second is a mature content sandbox). I miss the jazz. I liked the jazz. It would be cool to bring someone to the jazz, I think to myself.
So now I'm at a public sandbox (http://slurl.com/secondlife/Solang/173/13/34). A Public sandbox greeter tells me:
[3:29] Public Sandbox Greeter: Please Clean Up after yourself before leaving. Your mother does not work here!
[3:30] Public Sandbox Greeter: The Public Sandbox is fairly large. Please don't build in this greeting area.
[3:30] Public Sandbox Greeter: Use of Cagers and Orbiters are PROHIBITED! Report Violations to PSG members.
[3:31] Public Sandbox Greeter: Welcome to the Public Sandbox!
[3:32] Public Sandbox Greeter: No Selling! The Public Sandbox is NOT a Mall. Please do NOT set up shop here!
[3:32] Public Sandbox Greeter: The Public Sandbox is fairly large. Please don't build in this greeting area.
[3:33] Public Sandbox Greeter: Please Clean Up after yourself before leaving. Your mother does not work here!
[3:34] Public Sandbox Greeter: Use of Cagers and Orbiters are PROHIBITED! Report Violations to PSG members.
[3:34] Public Sandbox Greeter: This is a PG area. Please NO Nudity, Indecency, Violence and/or Profanity.
[3:35] Public Sandbox Greeter: Sound effects can be fun, too much can get annoying. Sound-spamming is unwelcome.
[3:36] Public Sandbox Greeter: No Selling! The Public Sandbox is NOT a Mall. Please do NOT set up shop here!
[3:36] Public Sandbox Greeter: Combat is NOT allowed here! Please find other PvP or Combat Places for that!
I need to get permission to use chat logs...
While this is happening, I'm looking up F1 help which very quickly tells me how to create a Landmark for the sandbox (basically a bookmark). It's just World | Create landmark here.
Shite, the screen on the PC has just gone blank. The resolution is ruined. A message says "The ialmrnt 5 driver has stopped working normally. Save your work and reboot the system to restore full display functionality. The next time you reboot the machine a dialog will be displayed giving you a chance to upload data about this failure to Microsoft". Some web searching reveals that I should update graphics card drivers. I can probably do this myself. But I prefer to ask tech support to do this for me. Not much point continuing until I sort this out. One hour spent on nothing. There is no point continuing until I sort this out. And anyway, I'm meeting a student at 12.
Ooh, blogger just crashed. Again. SO glad I'm working in notepad too!!
2pm
I had to look up a way to identify the graphics card (Intel 82945G Express Chipset). I typed dxdiag into Run. I now have to double check the operating system (XP Professional). I'm not sure if I should be updating with a generic Intel driver or a Dell driver. This is not fun. The labs are probably different again. And I still need to talk to Bob about testing in the labs. All this before I even create my first prim!
5.40pm
I've contacted Bob at Phil's request. He says support for SL in the labs is unlike. he points me to a useful 30 minute video. Very cautionary clip. Legal issues. IP issues. Copyright issues. The word litigation comes up a lot. Now I happen to be one the few people I know who still concerns herself with copyright infringement but it hadn't occured to me that by forcing students to use SL, I was forcing them to accept user agreements and terms of service that have implications for their own IP and I also hadn't considered that even by using this blogging tool, my information can be used by Blogger. That's a scary thought.
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
6 May 2008 - Delving into Development
6 May 2008 - Delving into Development
I'm starting with Second Life Getting Started. I want to find out about developers who can help, I need to know about accounts and land. I'm looking for educational best practices.
Land
- Buy land
- Land Use fee
- Islands are separate and they seem to be the way to go. "Private Island ownership lets you create a secure "intranet" space with restricted membership for your students and faculty, or you can open it up to be accessible to everyone on the Second Life Grid". I think this is what most people do. Also, less vulnerable to griefers.
- Charged based on max usage over 30 days
I find Guidelines for Educators. It looks interesting.
I decide to open the Second Life Official Guide
Prims, objects, parameter modelling, models, meshes, rezzing objects...
This is a lot of jargon and it's all introduced before the Getting Started Section, which is scary.
But they say it's like using Lego
I may need to just get a premium account and go do this
I'm interested in how short my attention span is here. Cognitive load is something I find compelling.
"Islands are priced at US$1,000 for 65,536 square meters (about 16 acres). Monthly land fees for maintenance are US$295."
Yikes!
I'm very hungry. I'm going home now.
I'm starting with Second Life Getting Started. I want to find out about developers who can help, I need to know about accounts and land. I'm looking for educational best practices.
Land
- Buy land
- Land Use fee
- Islands are separate and they seem to be the way to go. "Private Island ownership lets you create a secure "intranet" space with restricted membership for your students and faculty, or you can open it up to be accessible to everyone on the Second Life Grid". I think this is what most people do. Also, less vulnerable to griefers.
- Charged based on max usage over 30 days
I find Guidelines for Educators. It looks interesting.
I decide to open the Second Life Official Guide
Prims, objects, parameter modelling, models, meshes, rezzing objects...
This is a lot of jargon and it's all introduced before the Getting Started Section, which is scary.
But they say it's like using Lego
I may need to just get a premium account and go do this
I'm interested in how short my attention span is here. Cognitive load is something I find compelling.
"Islands are priced at US$1,000 for 65,536 square meters (about 16 acres). Monthly land fees for maintenance are US$295."
Yikes!
I'm very hungry. I'm going home now.
Friday, May 02, 2008
2 May 2008 Logos Sohl is Born
I knew I needed to change my avatar when Nick from CleverZebra couldn't pronounce my name at the vBusiness Expo. So today I did it. Having experimented with Nonethe Wiser and a host of other puns, I finally landed on Logos Sohl. The Platonic Soul had 3 parts: logos, thymos and eros. Logos is mind or reason. It sounds quite masculine and the phrase "masculine principle of rationality" from Yung is annoying me. Anyway, my avatar is still female and will stay that way. And I like the name. I like the contradiction. I like the associations. I'm already defending it, aren't I?
May 2nd 2008 - Teaching in SL
Fred and Phil are very excited about me teaching parts of IS3317 online. I'm nervous. Tentative. Fearing the work load. Feeling that doing this solo is not wise. But I'm rummaging.
Listening to Fleep Tuque discussing her observational study. She talks about best practice, innovation and experimentation. Best practices included greeting notecards, outside links (embedding 2D content into it), teleports that are systematically signed, having sandboxes. The role of officespaces was similar. Dance clubs was surprising. Media use was sporadic. She couldn't tell if classes were happening or not. Some were soliciting donations. Some are marketing the institution.
I've created a note file called educational resources. I'm using mailing lists to get these. I have:
Education in Second Life: Explore the Possibilities (movie 6:00min)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMGR9q43dag
Educational Uses of Second Life (movie 6:59min)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOFU9oUF2HA&feature=related
101 Uses of Second Life in the College Classroom
http://facstaff.elon.edu/mconklin/pubs/glshandout.pdf (includes monetary and economic issues)
Puritans Guide> http://puritansguidetosecondlife.blogspot.com/index.html (see also on right "Educator Survival Pack" links)
Seven Wonders of Second Life from techLearning
http://www.techlearning.com/blog/2007/07/seven_wonders_of_second_life_1.php
Second Seeker (reviews) http://secondseeker.com/
SL Trip Tips> http://www.sltriptips.com/
SaLamander Wiki http://www.eduisland.net/salamanderwiki/index.php?title=Main_Page
Linda L. Woods, MLS. MA. (Ed Tech)
AT&T Education Advocate
http://www.kn.att.com/
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Eduisland%20II/25/195/21
Fleep Tuque
http://slcn.tv/bpe-fleep-tuque
This so it so far.
Listening to Fleep Tuque discussing her observational study. She talks about best practice, innovation and experimentation. Best practices included greeting notecards, outside links (embedding 2D content into it), teleports that are systematically signed, having sandboxes. The role of officespaces was similar. Dance clubs was surprising. Media use was sporadic. She couldn't tell if classes were happening or not. Some were soliciting donations. Some are marketing the institution.
I've created a note file called educational resources. I'm using mailing lists to get these. I have:
Education in Second Life: Explore the Possibilities (movie 6:00min)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMGR9q43dag
Educational Uses of Second Life (movie 6:59min)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOFU9oUF2HA&feature=related
101 Uses of Second Life in the College Classroom
http://facstaff.elon.edu/mconklin/pubs/glshandout.pdf (includes monetary and economic issues)
Puritans Guide> http://puritansguidetosecondlife.blogspot.com/index.html (see also on right "Educator Survival Pack" links)
Seven Wonders of Second Life from techLearning
http://www.techlearning.com/blog/2007/07/seven_wonders_of_second_life_1.php
Second Seeker (reviews) http://secondseeker.com/
SL Trip Tips> http://www.sltriptips.com/
SaLamander Wiki http://www.eduisland.net/salamanderwiki/index.php?title=Main_Page
Linda L. Woods, MLS. MA. (Ed Tech)
AT&T Education Advocate
http://www.kn.att.com/
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Eduisland%20II/25/195/21
Fleep Tuque
http://slcn.tv/bpe-fleep-tuque
This so it so far.
Friday, April 25, 2008
25 April 2008 - Erica Driver
I cannot believe that Blogger dropped this post.
It was pure dynamite
Killer apps
- business process rehearsal
Use cases:
Virtual operations centers
Hospital training
Physiological responses to avatar touch same as for real people
It was pure dynamite
Killer apps
- business process rehearsal
Use cases:
Virtual operations centers
Hospital training
Physiological responses to avatar touch same as for real people
26 April 2008 Thinking Out Loud
I first noticed the name Bloomfield yesterday at the vBusiness Expo. It was associated with Metanomics. Today, I see the same name in a Blog. He's having a talk about metanomics. It gets me thinking.
I'm thinking about what F.C. said about mirroring social networks from the real world in virtual worlds. I think they're not similar and are similar.
How and Why?
(1) Access. I met Mr. Bell yesterday and swivelled the viewer to take a snapshot of me (i.e. my avatar) with him (i.e his avatar). I was really excited to meet such a well known figure (well, to me at least). Why did I have this kind of access? Network size? Open access to virtual world conferences so long as people are hunting audiences.
(2) Community. A speaker at the expo yesterday spoke about already knowing most of hte people she worked with in SL before she met them inworld. There is an element of historicity that is important here. When studying the Sociology of Development many years ago one of the ideas that I took from it was that when the first world 'developed', it did so without the interference of the rest of the world. Whereas, the developing world's development is happening post our own development and is therefore affected by that and its own process is influenced by what we happened to do. In the same way, how virtual world networking develops will be impacted by how it already happens in "the real life".
I'm thinking about what F.C. said about mirroring social networks from the real world in virtual worlds. I think they're not similar and are similar.
How and Why?
(1) Access. I met Mr. Bell yesterday and swivelled the viewer to take a snapshot of me (i.e. my avatar) with him (i.e his avatar). I was really excited to meet such a well known figure (well, to me at least). Why did I have this kind of access? Network size? Open access to virtual world conferences so long as people are hunting audiences.
(2) Community. A speaker at the expo yesterday spoke about already knowing most of hte people she worked with in SL before she met them inworld. There is an element of historicity that is important here. When studying the Sociology of Development many years ago one of the ideas that I took from it was that when the first world 'developed', it did so without the interference of the rest of the world. Whereas, the developing world's development is happening post our own development and is therefore affected by that and its own process is influenced by what we happened to do. In the same way, how virtual world networking develops will be impacted by how it already happens in "the real life".
25 April 2008 Mylifebits and Web 2.0 Tools
Mylifebits is something I read about last week on Slashdot (something I only heard of for the first time last week). Microsoft researchers (and Gordon Bell) want to capture every moment of your life. Apparently it will all fit on a DVD. I find this idea interesting in terms of doing my own phd, though I think being able to record every thought or learning or emotion etc would be more interesting (and would not, I think, I hope, fit on a DVD!).
I am learning about Google Reader. I can tell it's useful. But I don't understand it yet. I just set it up last week. And now there are 255 messages in it now I think. So I need to look at it. The header says "Google Blog Search: Second Life". I click on one of the stories. It's about the Diversity Building on Princeton's sim [what's a sim?]. It's from SL iReports. I see a Subscribe button. I click on it. It asks which thingy [?] I would like to use so I see and select Google. Now I've subscribed to it too but I don't know what that actually means. It's tough knowing so little.
[Several hours later and I am still trawling through the 200+ messages in the one feed I signed up to] I have figured out that I can plug RSS feeds into Google Reader (or the Google Homepage). That's very neat. It took 3 iterations (3 signups) to finally grasp what was happening. Now the penny has dropped. Live Bookmarks is another way of doing the same thing. Ah-ha.
Now (several hours later), I'm thinking about Linkedin after a conversation with F.C. I also saw a reference to it in a blog posting (don't think I knew of it before that). The blog says that Linkedin is about identity but other social networking tools are about presence. They encourage you to "get the most from your professional network". Hmm. This is another angle on virtual worlds that I'm not considering yet.
"Social software". New phrase for me. I like it. I read about it on a Clay Shirky Terranova blog entry. I know that name.
I am learning about Google Reader. I can tell it's useful. But I don't understand it yet. I just set it up last week. And now there are 255 messages in it now I think. So I need to look at it. The header says "Google Blog Search: Second Life". I click on one of the stories. It's about the Diversity Building on Princeton's sim [what's a sim?]. It's from SL iReports. I see a Subscribe button. I click on it. It asks which thingy [?] I would like to use so I see and select Google. Now I've subscribed to it too but I don't know what that actually means. It's tough knowing so little.
[Several hours later and I am still trawling through the 200+ messages in the one feed I signed up to] I have figured out that I can plug RSS feeds into Google Reader (or the Google Homepage). That's very neat. It took 3 iterations (3 signups) to finally grasp what was happening. Now the penny has dropped. Live Bookmarks is another way of doing the same thing. Ah-ha.
Now (several hours later), I'm thinking about Linkedin after a conversation with F.C. I also saw a reference to it in a blog posting (don't think I knew of it before that). The blog says that Linkedin is about identity but other social networking tools are about presence. They encourage you to "get the most from your professional network". Hmm. This is another angle on virtual worlds that I'm not considering yet.
"Social software". New phrase for me. I like it. I read about it on a Clay Shirky Terranova blog entry. I know that name.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
24 April 2008 Video Clip
I just found an amazing You Tube clip on using SL for education
Key points
- immersion of learners (suspend belief, feel immersed)
- a sense of being there
- the ability to connect and communicate
- interaction
- walking in someone else's shoes (UCDavis virtual hallucination site)
- experiencing sensations
- collaboration and exchange with colleagues (learners and instructors)
- debabbler for language translation
- possible uses still emerging
Tools mentioned
- Sloodle (mashup of Moodle Learning Management System)
- role playing as an instructional tool
- experiencing periods in history or exotic places
- virtual scavenger hunt (e.g. objects with definitions)
- guided tours of real world replicas (places or a dell computer or a painting)
- virtual sand box
- learner collaboration "co-create virtual 3d objects"
- self-paced tutorials (Ohio learning kiosks
- social nights
- white boards (popular; can be used as powerpoint)
- voice support
What a great video!
Key points
- immersion of learners (suspend belief, feel immersed)
- a sense of being there
- the ability to connect and communicate
- interaction
- walking in someone else's shoes (UCDavis virtual hallucination site)
- experiencing sensations
- collaboration and exchange with colleagues (learners and instructors)
- debabbler for language translation
- possible uses still emerging
Tools mentioned
- Sloodle (mashup of Moodle Learning Management System)
- role playing as an instructional tool
- experiencing periods in history or exotic places
- virtual scavenger hunt (e.g. objects with definitions)
- guided tours of real world replicas (places or a dell computer or a painting)
- virtual sand box
- learner collaboration "co-create virtual 3d objects"
- self-paced tutorials (Ohio learning kiosks
- social nights
- white boards (popular; can be used as powerpoint)
- voice support
What a great video!
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
23 April 2008
I'm in world today. I'm going to answer some questions for a friend who doing a project on design in SL. So I've logged in and I'm looking around.
I have it in my mind to customize my avatar. I suspect I wont be taken seriously inworld until I do that. I look like (and am) a newbie. I plan to spend more time inworld in the near future. Too much of what I know is second hand information.
I have the SL for Dummies book open again. It's just told me about Movement Controls (p. 68). I'm not clear on how to fly straight up versus flying forward. Wagner Au talks about avatars generally only flying between places and comments that he would have expected more building/activity off the virtual ground. That makes sense.
"Use... to come to a controlled landing instead of crashing down like a newbie" (Robbins and Bell, p. 69). Oops
I've just been offered a texture. I have no idea what to do with that. Hmmm.
I'm looking up the vbusiness expo. I've registered for it. Should be interesting.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
22 April 2008 - About the PhD
I have a simile. In trying to understand virtual worlds, it's like I am working with a zoom lens that's finding it hard to get a fix on a subject. The lens struggles to focus on the subject, its little motor moving the lens in and out, trying to hone in on the subject of the composition but until it gets that fix, nothing is clear.
Sunday, April 20, 2008
20 April 2008
I have to write the paper today and I'm still reading Wagner Au's "The Making of Second Life". I like the discussion on Web 2.0. It's changed my thinking on the relationship between the two. But this is bad. I'm also downloading Skype. And updating SL (a compulsory update). I have around 500 words. A friend, who's finished her PhD emails and says "PhD experiences are often destructive and fragmenting". I'm trying to be very Zen about all this uncertainty I'm meant to tolerate, but I can't help feeling that SL itself is particularly frustrating. Au argues that "Second life as we know it didn't exist until its original creators had explored it long enough to realize what its purpose was", p. 30. How long will it take me, I wonder.
Saturday, April 19, 2008
April 19th, 2008 - Circled R
I need to figure out what to do about that circled R that accompanies many instances of the phrase Second Life. Any ideas? Anyone?
I need to write a paper today for the IIWIS, a pre-ECIS workshop, being organized by the IAIS. It's due tomorrow. I always intended to write it at the last minute. But this isn't funny. My TOC looks like:
SYNTHETIC WORLDS: AN OVERVIEW
1 INTRODUCTION
2 HISTORY AND EVOLUTION OF SYNTHETIC WORLDS
2.1.1 MUDs and MUSHs
2.1.2 MMORPG – Or just call me MOO!
3 DEFINING SYNTHETIC WORLDS
3.1 SYNTHETIC, VIRTUAL, MIRROR WORLDS AND THE METAVERSE
3.2 WEB 2.0, SOCIAL MEDIA, SOCIAL NETWORKING, WEB 3D
3.3 BUSINESS-ORIENTED INTERPRETATIONS: MARKETS AND METANOMICS
3.4 AVATAR, RESIDENT, INHABITANT
3.5 THE SPECIAL CASE OF SECOND LIFE®
3.6 TOWARD A TENTATIVE DEFINITION
4 EXPLORING THE POTENTIAL OF SYNTHETIC WORLDS
4.1 SYNTHETIC WORLDS FOR EDUCATION
5 WHERE NOW?
5.1 BEHIND DOOR NO. 1:
5.2 BEHIND DOOR NO. 2:
5.3 BEHIND DOOR NO. 3:
6 CONCLUSION
It's the first time I've used Synthetic Worlds rather than Virtual Worlds. It's been a very conscious decision: 'virtual' is just too ambiguous.
I need to write a paper today for the IIWIS, a pre-ECIS workshop, being organized by the IAIS. It's due tomorrow. I always intended to write it at the last minute. But this isn't funny. My TOC looks like:
SYNTHETIC WORLDS: AN OVERVIEW
1 INTRODUCTION
2 HISTORY AND EVOLUTION OF SYNTHETIC WORLDS
2.1.1 MUDs and MUSHs
2.1.2 MMORPG – Or just call me MOO!
3 DEFINING SYNTHETIC WORLDS
3.1 SYNTHETIC, VIRTUAL, MIRROR WORLDS AND THE METAVERSE
3.2 WEB 2.0, SOCIAL MEDIA, SOCIAL NETWORKING, WEB 3D
3.3 BUSINESS-ORIENTED INTERPRETATIONS: MARKETS AND METANOMICS
3.4 AVATAR, RESIDENT, INHABITANT
3.5 THE SPECIAL CASE OF SECOND LIFE®
3.6 TOWARD A TENTATIVE DEFINITION
4 EXPLORING THE POTENTIAL OF SYNTHETIC WORLDS
4.1 SYNTHETIC WORLDS FOR EDUCATION
5 WHERE NOW?
5.1 BEHIND DOOR NO. 1:
5.2 BEHIND DOOR NO. 2:
5.3 BEHIND DOOR NO. 3:
6 CONCLUSION
It's the first time I've used Synthetic Worlds rather than Virtual Worlds. It's been a very conscious decision: 'virtual' is just too ambiguous.
Friday, April 18, 2008
18 April 2008
I am cranky: tightened braces = lack of food = cranky Niamh
I read today: "The more we know about genes the less we understand". It could easily read: "The more I know about Virtual Worlds the less I understand". Or "The more I know about doing a PhD the less I understand". For the longest time, I had a nice neat conceptualization of virtual worlds. Then I discovered the SL community blogs, mailing lists etc. I started reading what's been published so far (not much). Now I'm confused.
Terms like social media and social networking are a puzzle. I find myself thinking about the nature of my activities here in my little office. A reflexive thinking, I suppose. 12 windows open at a time. Haphazard searching for material. Lists of notes indexing my other notes. I think of Brown and Duguid ("The Social Life of Information") - they talk about contemplating indexing their help indexes. I just read a WIRED article about E. Coli. It talks about the DNA being organized by "transcription factors". It goes on to say: "In the latest issue of Nature, scientists reported an experiment in which they wreaked havoc with E. coli's network. They randomly added new links between the transcription factors at the top of the microbe's hierarchy. Now a transcription factor could turn on another one that it never had before. The scientists randomly rewired the network in 598 different ways and then stepped back to see what happened to the bacteria. You might expect that they all died... About 95 percent of the rewired bacteria did just fine with their new networks... Some even performed better than microbes with the original wiring, under some conditions... scientists don't quite know why a network like the one in E. coli can handle this rewiring so well. The source of their strength lies not in a single molecule -- DNA -- but in a complicated web of relationships. The network itself is the mystery for biologists in the 21st century" - this seems to be significant in some way. Hmmm.
I have decided to embrace the research process today. Sarah "Intellagirl" Robbins describes herself as one of the 'digirati'. It's a nice word. I need to be one. I need to embrace del.ic.ious or whatever it is. Twitter. Etc. I need to figure out how to label my blogs for instance so that I can mine them.
... "It is not the strongest species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change." - Charles Darwin
Combine with Wagner Au who talks about "Bebop Reality", p. xvii ..."fundamental laws of physics and identity are open to constant improvisation by its inhabitants".
I read today: "The more we know about genes the less we understand". It could easily read: "The more I know about Virtual Worlds the less I understand". Or "The more I know about doing a PhD the less I understand". For the longest time, I had a nice neat conceptualization of virtual worlds. Then I discovered the SL community blogs, mailing lists etc. I started reading what's been published so far (not much). Now I'm confused.
Terms like social media and social networking are a puzzle. I find myself thinking about the nature of my activities here in my little office. A reflexive thinking, I suppose. 12 windows open at a time. Haphazard searching for material. Lists of notes indexing my other notes. I think of Brown and Duguid ("The Social Life of Information") - they talk about contemplating indexing their help indexes. I just read a WIRED article about E. Coli. It talks about the DNA being organized by "transcription factors". It goes on to say: "In the latest issue of Nature, scientists reported an experiment in which they wreaked havoc with E. coli's network. They randomly added new links between the transcription factors at the top of the microbe's hierarchy. Now a transcription factor could turn on another one that it never had before. The scientists randomly rewired the network in 598 different ways and then stepped back to see what happened to the bacteria. You might expect that they all died... About 95 percent of the rewired bacteria did just fine with their new networks... Some even performed better than microbes with the original wiring, under some conditions... scientists don't quite know why a network like the one in E. coli can handle this rewiring so well. The source of their strength lies not in a single molecule -- DNA -- but in a complicated web of relationships. The network itself is the mystery for biologists in the 21st century" - this seems to be significant in some way. Hmmm.
I have decided to embrace the research process today. Sarah "Intellagirl" Robbins describes herself as one of the 'digirati'. It's a nice word. I need to be one. I need to embrace del.ic.ious or whatever it is. Twitter. Etc. I need to figure out how to label my blogs for instance so that I can mine them.
... "It is not the strongest species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change." - Charles Darwin
Combine with Wagner Au who talks about "Bebop Reality", p. xvii ..."fundamental laws of physics and identity are open to constant improvisation by its inhabitants".
Monday, April 14, 2008
14 April 2008
I did a quick survey of educational institutions using SL. The responses are shown here. The most interesting development for me from the exercise was the reference to:
Jennings, N. and C. Collins (2007). "Virtual or Virtually U: Educational Institutions in Second Life." International Journal of Social Sciences 2(3): 180-186.
14 April 2008 - Data Management for Dummy
An update: The past few weeks have been interesting. Having been looking initially at educational usage of SL, I found myself slipping into education and out of IS (Information Systems). I thought I would do this by throwing out all I had gathered on approaches to education etc and concentrating instead on technology acceptance and implementation using educators as a group. That was looking good. Very do-able. Totally unlike the process based approach I had imagined for myself. Absolutely non-interpretive all of a sudden. Hard to square that circle. But it was looking good. Then it was suggested that I try out for a book chapter. This really threw the cat amongst the pigeons. I had to apply myself. To whether or not Virtual Worlds are a form of Web 2.0 or not at all. I found this question interesting. I engaged in an unfocused, rambling, information search. Then I really did begin to drown in information, until it was suggested that I comment on that phenomenon in and of itself for the purposes of the chapter (which was subsequently accepted). So right now, I'm looking for ways of going about content analysis. And after a day of reading mailing lists and digests and discovering yet more wikis and blogs, I have rediscovered Denzin and Lincoln. Chapters like "Data Management and Analysis Methods". I am annoyed at myself for not thinking of this sooner. Sheesh.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
March 20th, 2008
Hello,
So I have scheduled a meeting at 11.00 with someone who sounds like she very much knows her way around Second Life. I'm nervous and have been trying to figure out voice chat in advance of the meeting so that I don't look like a complete nerd. It's not working and whilst playing with fullscreen and window mode (goaded into it by my shiny new 'Second Life for Dummies' book), I've just crashed Second Life altogether. And now the crash logger has hung.
So I'm editing preferences. It's all about computing resources. How far do you want to see? What kind of resolution do you want? How to deal with lag? It's all very technical. One option is "Show Avatar in Mouselook" (p. 27) and apparently with this you can look down and see yourself. Apparently, a lot of people go for this for the added immersion. It can give you a doppler effect.
I.C. has just joined me for a chat. Very exciting for me and fun. I'm feeling like a bit of an anthropologist. He is a newbie too. Stole his avatar from his son. He's Spanish.
A guy with a clothes shop has offered me friendship and is going to offer me a teleport? I am so in over my head. I got a teleport to Zora. He sells mainly underwear.
I kill some time, then I join Fli. We're learning stuff from her. She's very good. This morning's adventures have come in very handy. I have learned how to IM, how to add friends, how to teleport etc. It's all good.
So sin e for now folks
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Newbie Chronicles Part One
So I logged onto SL
And was asked to upgrade
I said ok – then googled security breaches! Paranoid much!
Waited for my dance club to load…
Trees just appear like magic
It seems slow - but I believe that's my laptop's fault
I try to get a screenshot
I have to set my avatar’s position (up/down arrow keys), the camera position (left/right arrow keys) and then ‘zoom in’ (mouse wheel) to get my snapshot, but it’s still not perfect because I can’t ‘crouch’… no idea how.
I just got a script error warning…
I just “sat down” on a line dancing button
And now my avatar is line dancing
I laugh out loud
Then I think “who’s watching?” - As in, "who is watching my crazy avatar?"
Followed by “make it stop!”
Total accident - as great discoveries often are
Great fun
Second Life Survey
Hello all,
I have created a quick survey to try to find out how many educational institutions are actually using Second Life. It's at
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=JenimOChGLIOQj9hw2HifA_3d_3d
and I would love your help!
Thanks,
Niamh
I have created a quick survey to try to find out how many educational institutions are actually using Second Life. It's at
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=JenimOChGLIOQj9hw2HifA_3d_3d
and I would love your help!
Thanks,
Niamh
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
1
Hello,
This is going to be a very selfish and self-centered blog, very much based on me, myself and I and my travels in Second Life. I'm doing a PhD on virtual learning environments and I want to find some in Second Life if I can.
I've just come from the University of Edinburgh virtual campus (http://slurl.com/secondlife/Edinburgh%20East/104/106/25) - I was the only person there - but all I could find was a link to their website (http://www.man.ed.ac.uk/ug_study/prospective_students/) and a link to their blog (http://shalebing.blogspot.com/). Shale is not happy because (a) her words are being censored: "So I have now promised to keep saying on this blog that everything is hunky-dory and we love all the other schools developing on Vue" and (b) she "thought [she] had escaped the tedium of Second Life development" but clearly has not and (c) "To state the glaringly obvious, the Management School lost interest in Second Life because we (they?) could not see how it would actually support our teaching."
Crap. If they can't see a way then I am in trouble...
Notes on blog:
- "For Second Life to be useful in education it needs students to be able to access it, both from open-access computers in the uni and from their own computers."
- She has graphics card issues
- She calls it MUVE
- "When we roll-out Second Life for courses we will find out whether this is a problem or not."
- John Kirriemuir Eduserv report - Shale's comments: "the level of activity is less than one might expect, considering how fashionable SL is and how widely it is being adopted in US universities, and also that most activities are being driven by enthusiasts rather than adopted strategically by the institutions. The former may be due to the residual focus on the RAE and the second impression may be false because universities approaching SL strategically are developing areas in private, ready to launch them fully-formed on an unsuspecting World. John found evidence for this covert development in finding many of the SL spaces being developed blocked to public access."
So I find myself almost straight away looking up https://secure-web10.secondlife.com/community/support.php to get help... I'd love to know how to run and also how to retrieve SLURLs... I spot a link on courses running on SL right now - there are 55 of them!! I choose one. But it's just a video that you can watch anytime... Several are about using GIMP and photoshop for SL clothes etc... One on ESL... A Belgacom Island where they're looking for Master's graduates who "have a passion for telecommunication"... I come across "BDSM Class - Exploring BDSM"... I think it might be some sort of programming language but google it just in case (and just as well) first... something about PRIMS, I google it and I find the SL wiki http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Sculpted_Prims - that's pretty neat.
I decide to teleport... I decide to go to the first popular spot I can see on my map... It turns out to be "money machine island dance club". there are lots of people here. Why can't I walk and talk? Why can't I get the SLURL... the map tells me it's an unknown address... I feel very incapable and frustrated... maybe I'll sign out, go into college and read some papers... I listen to the music: .997 80s channel... This is bad. I look around. I start to feel underdressed. I grab a screenshot of the empty dance floor and the cages. Seriously. It's gambling. And free money. And slot machines... Dodge! I spot someone running. I must figure that out.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)