Virtual Environments: Is one life enough?

For some reason attendance at class this week was very poor. This made it difficult to have a really meaningful discussion. However, Rory made up for it by sharing his experience of co-creating a successful automotive blog over the last five years. He shared the story behind the development as a few friends went from posting photos about their common interest to becoming a recognised source of expertise with several hundred followers. We discussed how this led to more focussed sense of responsibility towards the community of followers and greater sensitivity around the audience. Issues of copyright and plagiarism emerged also. The value of having a recognisable approach to the subject is one way of counteracting this – Rory suggested that the source of distinctive images remains recognisable even if cropped or altered.

John reminded the class that everyone should have at least the following five posts made to their blogs by now:

1. Expectations for the module.
2. Review of three locations visited in SL.
3. Description of encounters with two residents of SL.
4. Three adjectives describing yourself and a 30 second elevator pitch.
5. How to convert your personal presence online to an identity for professional networking.

From this week on you should write at least one post a week describing progress on your project: how you are communicating with your partner, the tools you find useful, how easy/difficult you are finding online collaboration, what works for you and what doesn’t, etc.

ACTIVITIES FOR NEXT CLASS:

1. Read: some of Reinventing Ourselves: Contemporary Concepts of Identity in Virtual Worlds, Eds Anna Peachy and Mark Childs, published by Springer 2011.
2. Prepare: a report on your progress with the project for next week’s class.
3. Write the sixth post: to your blog describing progress on your project.
4. If you have some time visit The Garden Maze at Falconmoon and see if you can find your way to the middle!