REMINDER: Clocks have changed in Europe but not in the U.S. this week. So best to keep the Second Life clock in mind!
Archive for October, 2012
Class 4: Elfay’s Notes: Preparation for class
October 30, 201213:00 SLT/20:00 GMT: Class will begin at the regular DIT classroom in Virtual Dublin with Elfay for about 45 mns
Coffee & Pajamas Jazz Show Sites/Info
You can find a recent Bio here: http://www.mutantspace.com/skills/internet-radio-sec12ond-life/:
Facebook http://www.facebook.com/elfay
Show Intro/Demo: http://xxelfayxx.wix.com/jammies
Deviant Art: http://elfay.deviantart.com/gallery/
Show Poster Designer: http://www.vandalhandle.com/
Sorry my own portal site is being updated and not useful to you right now.
Second hour will move to Rob Barber’s SIM in Second Life (make sure you have found him already have the SLURL for that SIM ahead of class time)
He (and I) will have invited our regular friends/guests from both our shows to participate in this portion of the class. Rob will be talking about himself, his art and his work hopefully both in and out of SL). You can find his work here: http://www.robsteenhorst.nl/
Interact with us and our guests throughout the hour. – That means; I expect you can already teleport, use basic animations, talk in chat, and most importantly-have your audio working to enable you to hear live streaming (and in-house voice) before this class starts
There will be time for Q & A in chat before class ends. It’s social. loose. interactive and (supposed) to be fun! Prepare ahead of time so you can enjoy it and participate fully!
“The Frequent Asides”;
There are also my own ”private” networking pages on Flickr, Tumblr, Linkedin, Artbistro, Google and Mandys as well as my own portal site. But they can all be found by starting at one or more of the above. So nothing is private. So in other words…nothing is private.”
Class 3: Personal branding
October 26, 2012CLASS SUMMARY:
The class started with each participant giving his/her elevator pitch. Most were able to deliver using voice, others texted their pitches which were then read out by Locks. Generally all did a good job and for us, there is a better sense of knowing who is behind the avatar which is the point of the exercise.
The discussion then focused for a while on the creation of a personal brand or online identity and why this is important. The class identified reasons such as being in control of your own reputation, establishing yourself as a trustworthy brand or person for professional purposes, amongst others, as reasons why they would be looking at creation of an identity. We briefly looked at the people behind the blogs visited during the last weekly activity and tried to determine what impression we got from their blogs … if we got a good sense of who they were and what they were about … why we should be interested in what they had to say and if we could trust them.
The issue of how to present yourself was also raised and this led into a discussion of whether, and indeed how, to keep professional and personal separate in your online identities and also, why you might want to do that.
Coming back to identity within SL, this starts with the naming of our avatars, designing the physical shape, selecting clothing and accessories and so on. Tae explained the context from which the Acuppa Tae name and avatar emerged and some of the issues about maintaining an alternative personal identity, explaining that the real life John O’Connor was beginning to replace the SL identity of Tae – particularly in twitter. The concept of managing this persona, or personal brand, in a professional manner was considered leading to discussion around the development of online networks using tools like twitter and Facebook.
We ended the week’s discussion by briefly going beyond the self (personal identity) and looking at how online relationships (professional and personal) are established and maintained, the importance of trust and the need for appropriate conventions and rules of behaviour to support online communities. This will be continued next week.
Finally, Tae drew everyone’s attention to page 6 in the right hand column describing how the module will be assessed, the schedule and criteria. It is very important to understand this fully. If you have any questions post them here, in twitter or Facebook or ask at the next class.
All participants were given their L$300 stipend last week.
ACTIVITIES FOR NEXT CLASS:
- Go outside your established community/group (eg, this class group) in SL and make contact with at least two people relevant to your interests (artist, teacher, selling online, etc). Write a post on your blog explaining the relevance of these new contacts you have made, what you discussed and how to met and/or approached them.
- Discuss with your group and choose a social network to create profiles for your avatar and link your blog to this profile. Use this profile to connect with others in your community as appropriate to your group project.
- Blog post: Reflect on why you and your group chose the social network platform you have chosen to use.
Group Project Work: ‘Ties that bind 2.0’
October 18, 2012In keeping with our time honored tradition, this year the students have been set a collaborative project to work on a joint presentation to be delivered in Second Life at the end of module. The presentation should use various media forms and the use of props and all is encouraged… (creativity welcomed).
The brief is to interpret the theme ‘Ties that bind 2.0’ in terms of the module objectives, bearing in mind that the module is based on the identification of the self online, forming relationships and becoming part of communities.
Discussions will be ongoing, culminating in the final presentation. Each presentation should last between five and ten minutes.
Groups
- Dudley, Thomas, Sofia and Box
- Fenix, Kautostar and autocat
- Inish, Seranox, B.ro, and Ace.
Students will also be using various means to publicize their event and engage with the communities they identify with and engage with. They will be expected to reflect on the experience of collaborating online, working online and highligh their main contributions in their blogs.
For more details about the assessment of this module see page 6 (Module Assessment) in the right hand column of this blog.
Class 2: Communicating…Writing 101
October 18, 2012CLASS SUMMARY:
We discussed writing – the types used and the conventions around them.
Main points:
- Forms of writing we use include Narrative, Descriptive, Reflective, Critical,
- Sourcing information – where to look- make sure sources are reliable and credible (judging sources)
- Referencing – why and How (Chicago style): Give credit when due!
- Writing to topic: don’t go off point. Use your heading as an anchor
Mostly, the aim this module is to enable you to become accountable and confident in your writing.
The following three links give some more detailed information about academic writing.
DIT’s Study & IT Skills Survival Guide for Academic Writing
Purdue Online Writing Lab page on Academic Writing
Here is a guide to the Chicago referencing style
We also talked about how your work for this module will be assessed. You need to write at least one post to your blog each week. Your blogs will be assessed at certain milestones so ensure they are up to date always. We assess for quality in writing, your writing should go beyond narration and description to be also reflective and critical.
The introduction to the group project deserves a blog post of it’s own!
ACTIVITIES FOR NEXT CLASS:
- Bearing in mind what you learned today, have a look at http://www.johnoconnor.org/, compare the writing style with your own blog.
Write a new blog entry, this time address the module objectives from your perspective. Justify why they are important to you, while applying the conventions of academic writing given in the class. This will be a mix of descriptive/information, critical/reflective writing. - Visit the following blogs to see a selection of different ‘voices’:
http://dolcemerda.com,
http://vandalhandle.com/
http://confusedlaowai.com/
http://yumiko-froehlich.hazeliris.com/page/2/ ,
http://illustrationfriday.com/blog/
http://joasiakafka.blogspot.ie/
http://www.stylepantry.com/
Think about how you would identify these blog authors…what impression of the person behind the blog do you get? - Read: http://www.forbes.com/sites/dailymuse/2012/02/14/the-first-step-to-building-your-personal-brand/ and relate it to what the blogs you have just looked at are doing.
Now think about yourself (ie, your avatar). Who are you? What is your online identity? - Prepare a 30 second ‘elevator pitch’ about yourself and the identity you want to portray online. (ie, who you are and what you are about).
Class 1: Rules of engagement
October 14, 2012CLASS SUMMARY:
Participants were introduced to Acuppa Tae and Locks Aichi, the module leaders, and Sitearm Madonna and Elfay Pinkdot, guest lecturers on the module. Tae explained that for the first half of the module classes would be based on reading material to be given in advance. Participants will need to study this to inform their contribution to discussion in the class. Tae also asked participants to familiarise themselves with the learning outcomes of the module described on page 3 in the right hand column of this blog.
ACTIVITIES FOR NEXT CLASS:
- Complete your SL profile.
- Set up your blog using blogspot.com, wordpress.com or any other blogging tool.
- Complete the About Me section on your blog by writing about your expectations for this module – what you hope to get out of it, what you think you might contribute, etc, referring to the learning outcomes for the module.
- Find and explore three locations in SL.
- Post an entry to your blog describing the locations you visited.
- Set up a twitter account in your SL avatar’s name (or your real life name), if you don’t already have one and post a link to your blog. Use #iole12 to identify your twitter posts. Follow @johnoconnorDIT, @acuppatae, @iclaudiad, and each other.
Virtual Environments: Is one life enough? 