Virtual Environments: Is one life enough?

This week John is in Florence at the ELIA Biennial Conference so he logged into SL from his hotel room. It seems the wifi signal was good enough to support voice, apart from some reported background hissing, so the class was able to proceed as usual.

John reminded everyone that the student feedback form Q6A should be completed online by everyone (many of you have already done so) and it is completely anonymous so you may be brutally honest!

The class tried their hands at building simple shapes in SL during class. Starting with basic cubes which we positioned on the balcony wall we stretched them into flat panels and then placed images on them. This will serve as a basic slide presentation screen for delivering your group projects in two weeks. Create your images in Photoshop (512 x 512 pixels) and save in jpg format. Upload the jpgs to SL from the menubar Build>Upload>Image. This will cost L$10 (contact John if you have spent all of your allowance!).

Video is not very reliable in SL so John recommended posting to YoTube and providing a link if you want to use moving images.

There will be six groups presenting on Thursday 15th December and no matter how well prepared we all are technical issues inevitably arise which leads to delays. So please aim to remain in class until 9.30 pm to give everybody enough time to present comfortably.

John closed with a reference to this week’s reading list. It addresses the use of social media in disaster relief and business and the power of hashtags. We will discuss the implications next week.

Poilination created an elegant archway into the classroom from the balcony.

THINGS TO DO BEFORE THE NEXT CLASS:

1. Read: Technology’s Impact on Disaster Relief which talks about the use of Twitter, Google and other apps for coordination between relief teams.
2. Look at: The History and Power of Hashtags in Social Media Marketing an infographic.
3. Read: Five brilliant ways to use hashtags in social media marketing.