The complexity of issues around metaliteracy and digital citizenship were revealed by Valibrarian Gregg in her talk at the Community Virtual Library today. The visit began with a tour of the lovely facility which is a rich resource of information, data, references and texts while also being a calm space in which to relax – much like a library in RL in fact.
The Community Virtual Library is a place for calm contemplation, much like any good library in RL.
There was a good turnout of students and in addition to Magua and John we were joined by Sitearm and Wisdom also. After the tour Val brought us to the presentation platform which is rich with images and short texts to support the talk, based on her recent book Metamodernism and Changing Literacy: Emerging Research and Opportunities (2020).
A new addition to the space since our last visit is the Black Room where some of the darkness of the worldwide web and the internet is considered.
Valibrarian introduces the complexity of metamodernism and metaliteracy so that we can realise the impact of the digital age on society.
There was a good discussion around some of the topics raised by the talk, including consideration of the implications for democracy and freedom of thought in the metaverse, particularly if it is controlled by private interests. What impact might this have on a free society?
You can see a video of the lecture from last semester here.
The visit to Virtual Ability Island (VAI) is always a highlight of the semester. Unfortunately, many students didn’t make it to class as this is reading week (despite the timetable clearly indicating there would be class this week!)
Gentle Heron introduced us to the Virtual Ability Island community.
Gentle Heron welcomed everyone and spoke about the origins and activities of the community on VAI. In addition to hearing Gentle speaking her words were transcribed automatically in ‘nearby chat’ by means of the SpeakEasy HUD she uses on such occasions. This facilitates members of the community who cannot hear. You can view the video recorded by Sitearm Madonna from last semester’s visit or read about the previous semester’s visit to find out more about VAI.
Following Gentle’s introduction Magua and John divided the students into four groups who were sent to four different breakout locations for small group discussions led by members of the VAI community. We are really grateful to Suellen and James Heartsong, Mook Wheeler, The Tinys Slatan Dryke and iSkye Silverweb, Lorivonne Lustre for leading these sessions and sharing their insights and experiences in Real Life and in SL.
When we came back from the breakout sessions Gentle Heron posed three questions…
After the breakout sessions we gathered back in the meeting space where Gentle Heron posed three pertinent questions to the students who had equally perceptive responses before we concluded the visit with thanks to our friends in Virtual Ability Island.
Sitearm Madonna spoke about teamwork and collaboration online: working in a new era.
Sitearm Madonna met the class at the landing point in the Çağ University Second Life Campus for his presentation titled Composing for the New Era – Teamwork and Collaboration Online. After ensuring everyone had arrived he led us to the ornamental pool where he had installed a presentation board filled with text and images. He had thoughtfully placed seating around the pool so that everyone had a good view and then seated himself at the top of the board to indicate where we should be focusing our attention. Using his avatar to guide our attention in this manner is a very useful technique that Sitearm has developed in recent years (an interesting example of something that could only really work in a virtual world where you can use the camera to zoom in on the appropriate section of the board).
Last week all the Project Teams were asked to meet in Second Life to complete the task set in the class and discuss the Team Project. After he had introduced some of the basic principles around teamwork, Sitearm asked each team to come to the front and report on their meeting in turn. It didn’t matter whether or not the team had actually managed to meet or not, whether the meeting was considered a success or not, nor whether all the team members were present. The opportunity to give and hear feedback from each team gave us all a sense of how difficult it can be to contact people outside of the virtual world. Teams used email addresses and Instant Messaging (IM) to try and make contact and arrange meetings. Individuals did their best but sometimes received no replies, or were unable to agree to a time that suited everyone. However, some teams were successful and in all cases the conversations have begun and teammates are beginning to get to know each other.
The class in rapt attention as Sitearm reveals the secrets of working collaboratively and productively in teams.
The students engaged fully and shared their experiences, frustrations and successes and it was clear that they did very well for the first attempt. Their enthusiasm for meeting each other and figuring out how to proceed is impressive.
Unfortunately, the TU Dublin campus wifi network would not allow connection to Second Life so only those students who had access via a phone hotspot, or those working off campus, were able to join the class. The IT Support Team are currently reviewing the situation to find out what happened and hope it will be resolved for next week.
John shared a notecard with everyone listing the team leaders from TU Dublin so now each team has a Turkish and an Irish leader to facilitate meetings and progress.
Following the presentation on teamwork Sitearm guided us to an open platform in the sky with an elegant garden populated with blue butterflies. Here he gave a brief introduction to, and explanation of, the metaverse. Not Mr Zukerberg’s Metaverse with a capital M, but the multifarious digital spaces that make up what used to be known as cyberspace (after William Gibson introduced the term in his 1984 novel Neuromancer) but is now more commonly referred to as the metaverse (after Neal Stephenson popularised it in his 1992 novel Snow Crash).
Sitearm concluded with a live demonstration of teamwork. He brought us to a lower platform on which he had placed pianos and drum kits that played when touched. After we had fun making plenty of noise he explained the colour coding and gently led us to a more musical output, leaving us all with an example of a team moving from chaos to harmony.
Virtual Environments: Is one life enough? 