Monday, December 19, 2005

Some More Ideas for Class

I think we'll start by making our avatars look as much like our real world selves as possible - we might as well look familiar while everything else is new.

We have to go thru all the steps in the orientation island because ya earn Linden bucks - but only the first time you go thru

We have to go to some events - there's one that happens pretty frequently for new residents - that should be cool. I found some spaces where hopefully we can have a class meeting online - there's one in the building for hte educators in SL group. ANd one cool one that of course I forgot to bookmark. So guess I"ll have to go find it again The spaces have seating predefined -very cool. Otherwise we will have to just stand around.

We have to have a class in the sandbox - build stuff, play with textures, talk with people, check out the avatars
Same with the welcome center - lots of people just hang there talking

Then - we have to experience SL as something other than ourselves - if i can figure out how to save the first look. I would like to see people become the opposite gender - but becoming an animal might be interesting too.

Then we have to take a "grand tour" - here are some places to visit mentioned in the second life forums - places with things to explore, potential for in world games and role playing, interesting scenery, interesting malls, etc. - maybe we each take a place and write a travel brochure style description on the blog as a way to help others see what the world is about/what's possible. Or we each look at 3 or 4 places and try to come up with some commonalities and description of what SL really is/SL culture - here's the list of places so far:
Nexus Prime - like the world in Stephenson's Snow Crash - very modern and cyber-techy
Devils Moon - another cyber-techy city
Midnight City - a big city themed area - like NYC
Akasha Village - underground area to explore, a cemetary
Amsterdam - like the real city
Vail Art Museum - an art museum - this could be neat - I'd like to see a video wall with videos from park students - imagine iCTV promos running
Island of Dragon moon - has dragons!!! and a cave with cave paintings and lots of places to explore
Anango Island - supposed to be danger
Isle of Bliss
Disco Inferno - 70s themed disco
Nerd Emporium - low prim furniture
Serenite
skydiving in Abbotts
Rizal - has Linden made games including laser tag
Parrot Islan - has jetskis
Big Easy
Blarney Stone
The Forest of Kahruvel (space ball)
YadNi's
Mars Japanese Gardens
Clementina Park
The Scurvy Pier
Ambertown
Pop's Roadhouse
Megabux Games Rides Fun (182,37,123)
Lost Gardens of Slosser
RIverwalk
Telador Island - a recreation of hte land from the game Myst
Eldamar - an elven island
Lauk's Nest - has ruins of a Mayan temple to explore
Miyajima - a japanese themed sim
Taco - cartoony colors
Castle at Verloren
transylvania nation/vampire empire - vampire land
ALchera Winter Wonderland - has ice skating
Silver Island has a race track for cars called hte Silver City Motorsports COmplex
Tompson - quiet, place to sit and think
Portage - ditto - just pretty scenery - quiet
Chaos - has underground tunnels - lots of streat noise

and since we're media people - we need to seqarch out the media in the world - the infohubs, movie screens, radio, there's supposedly a newspaper (maybe slboutique.com is sort of that newspaper)- i wonder if this is something we could get involved in - making media available to places to improve dwell - we get artieK to DJ, how about some instructional podcasts, interviews with residents, machinima travelogues (i like that idea).

so how do these things fit in with qualitative research - part of that research is understanding culture - and part is understanding the different between observation and participant observation, part is interacting with people for interviews and such - and one of hte things I want peole to learn/get better at is writing in lots of different styles - for academic journal articles, for newspaper stories and for online venues - - so i think these things still fit - - and if one of our goals is to figure out what is or isn't a game - then playing more indepth in SL might help us make that definition

No comments: