As I’m guessing you know, Facebook has changed its name to “Meta” and headed out to colonize/discover/create a “metaverse.” It is a vision that at least in part has been propelled by the company’s acquisition of Oculus. What you may or may not know is that the term metaverse was coined by sci-fi author Neal […]
Category: Second LIfe
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presenting on Second Life
On Friday, I’ll be presenting with a number of colleagues on our campus’ adventures into Second Life. Last year I wrote a small campus grant that funded the initial purchase of the island and a few other things. Information Resources came through with the money for the monthly fee. And so we began. My colleagues […]
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Ludo-capitalism and metanomics
Julian Dibbell gave a talk last month in Second Life on the subject of ludo-capitalism. It’s a concept that arose in this last book, Play Money, a memoir on Dibbell’s experiences in making a living selling virtual goods (like gold pieces in online video games). (See his recent NY Times article on this subject.) Apparently, […]
So this is fairly obvious… I’m teaching an online course, which, like just about every online course, is offered asynchronously. No meeting time. In the pre-SL, 2-D web world I suppose there are reasons for scheduling meeting times for online courses, primarily so you could have some live discussion or presentation I guess. At Cortland […]
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Second Life World University Exchange
I haven’t had much time to write here. All the normal excuses. One of the things I’ve been busy with is our Second Life Pilot project. Last week we finally got ourselves set up so that students could get access to SL on campus (through use of flash drives we provided). So now the students […]
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Island life begins
Here I am on our newly acquired Second Life island, so island life begins for SUNY Cortland. Fortunately, I have colleagues in Information Resources who have some experience with building, b/c I know nada. However I am hoping that I’ll get a little experience in the next couple weeks. So what will we be doing […]
http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=-7585943465991500964&hl=en A discussion of some of the ideas shaping my thinking as I approach teaching in Second Life in the fall. what is direct deposit cash advance #plaa{display:none;visibility:hidden;}
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transmedia pedagogy
Transmedia storytelling is one of the key characteristics of convergence culture as Henry Jenkins explores it. The concept is likely familiar, even if the term is not. In it’s most common and often lame incarnation it is the movie novelization, the cheap plastic junk with the kids’ McLunch, the video game, etc. I suppose we […]
In Technology Review, Wade Roush offers an article on the intersection of Second Life-type virtual worlds and Google Earth-type "mirror worlds" that examines the potential future of such a mash-up combined with mobile networks. It seems likely that these technologies will combine: mobile networks and devices highly detailed 3-D maps of the real world geo-tagged, […]
This is a recurring question on the Second Life educators’ discussion list. The question arises in relation to issues of both avatar construction and island/space design and use. Why should an avatar look like a real person (albeit usually an impossibly beautiful person)? Should professors in SL be professional attired, wearing what the might in […]
Alex Reid 