Last Presentation Update

Two more seniors presented their research results last night. They conducted an online survey about Facebook and students reactions to it, including whether they'd be willing to pay for it (less than 2% said they'd pay!)

Since Sarah Naylor and Ekta Batra aren't skilled SecondLife users, we streamed their presentation in world. It was a good test for me too - turns out we need microphones and a more powerful computer than my poor little laptop to run these presentations.

They were a little nervous at first - talking to the camera is new for them. But they got progressively more confident. They answered questions from the small but interested audience. One person encouraged them to consider publishing their article.

Another Student Presentation

Mike Palumbo, known in SL as Shmapple Patrono, presented the results of his independent study project on intellectual property and other legal issues in virtual worlds on the Park Communication island on Tuesday. The topic seems to be very popoular; his talk attracted a lively crowd. Mike dealt with a variety of tough questions. Some he could answer, and others he'll have to take to law school (which he starts in the fall).

Mike identified a variety of issues that residents of virtual worlds need to consider. He interviewed lawyers in world and visited a variety of law related spots.

We've gotten some local television attention

Two tv stations from Syracuse came down to Ithaca last week to film class and talk to students in my qualitative reserach class. The students thought it was neat to be interviewed and to get to show off what they've learned about SL.

Here is a page from CH9 with 2 stories - a general story about the qualitative research class using SecondLife and a second story about how political candidates are using SecondLife, featuring some research and quotes from students in the class. Not sure how long the link will work.
http://www.9wsyr.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=81957841-8eab-41ad-8a4d-96d2f9a8ae5f

Here's a link to the story from CH5 Syracuse - it's just the text of the story.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18488491/
They came down and interviewed several students about their experiences.

Research Presentation in World

Austra and I presented the results of our research on religion in SL tonight. We had a few people attend. They asked good questions and gave us lots of encouraging feedback. It was really stressful tho - whew. You don't get clues about pacing that you might get in RL - like polite coughing and foot shuffling. Everyone looks attentive (and young and beautiful) in SecondLife.

Austra - a senior about ready to graduate - is getting to be an old hand at conference presentations. She presented her own research at a state level conference, this research at the annual meeting of the Popular Culture Association, and now this in world presentation. She answers tough questions well. She dressed up the area with a slide show of pictures of churches, and a collection of items she's collected at churches through out SecondLife. We put together a landmark laden notecard and a notecard dispenser. We need to add some text to the notecard for people who come to the display when we're not around.

I hope to get the students to do more of these presentations next year - and not wait till the end of the semester when everyone is stressed. I think the students in qualitative research could do presentations about their observations. And in audience research - it would be interesting to get them to present about their companies in world or about the pros and cons of different media - and invite folks from different marketing companies.

We have 2 more presentations on Tuesday. I'll post about them Wednesday and put up more photos.



And - the last picture is one i took of Austra's avatar buried in the dirt - it should be labeled "when terraforming goes horribly wrong" - ha ha! Our benches kept sliding down a little hill. I was trying to raise the land up just a little and smooth it out. Poof - I buried Austra up to her neck when she was away from her computer!

Dr Dobbs Life2.0 Conference

I got to go to the conference a couple of days last week - I do love live events in SL - chance to hang out with people from all kind of companies and backgrounds. This one had great speakers too - Mitch Kapor (creator of Lotus 123) and Philip Rosedale were keynoteres. There were tours of interesting builds, sessions with scrpters and builders. All designed to give people a better understanding of what's going on in world.