Virtual Environments: Is one life enough?

Sitearm and Tae spoke about taking control of our identities in today’s class. Tae gave the background to some of the current thinking around what the ‘self’ might be and how it is formed. This led on to the concept of our ‘personas’ and how this forms our identity. This subject is a little easier to consider in the context of our use of avatars in Second Life.

Sitearm porposed that ‘Avatar –Identity with Intent’ rests on a foundation of self-perception as conversations in physical, emotional, and congnitive realms. We can increase our ability to influence our actions and the results; both in virtual and natural worlds.

Following the talk Site and Tae demonstrated how to save your current avatar as an ‘outfit’ so that we could all experiment with different avatars. There was an interesting discussion on the experience of coming to class as an avatar instead of attending class in the natural world. Students suggested they feel more able to speak up in SL. There is a sense of freedom using an avatar to voice opinions and ask questions in a more equal environment where the differences between teachers and studetns are less obvious.

Sitearm introduced the Principles You personality archetypes assessment which is similar to the well-known Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and the Belbin Team Indicator. These are all systems for helping us identify our personality types so that teams know what role each member is best suited for. These systems are useful but not absolutely accuate so need to be taken with caution. However, they can be helpful for seeing what skills might be missing in a team. Tae asked you to take the free test (it takes about ten minutes or so) and share the results with your team. Use this to try and allocate team roles and identify any areas you might need support.

If you missed this class or would like to review the content see the summary from last semester.