The students presented their collaborative Team Projects this week. The quality of the content and the presentations was excellent and the support they received from the Whole Brain Health team was much in evidence.
Author Archive
Definition of the Metaverse
December 1, 2021This week we had progress updates from the Project Teams. Following that Sitearm Madonna gave a talk titled: Composing for the Future – An Operational Definition of the Metaverse.
Metaliteracy for Digital Citizenship
November 24, 2021Valerie Hill (aka Valibrarian) hosted us at the Community Virtual Library and introduced the main topics of her book Metamodernism and Changing Literacy: Emerging Research and Opportunities, 2020. She referred to Alvin Tofler’s prediction:
The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn.
Online Communities and Relationships
November 17, 2021Gentle Heron and the team at Virtual Ability Island hosted the class this week. After an introduction from Gentle that explained the origins of the community and its development we broke into smaller groups facilitated by members of the VAI community. The opportunity for students to hear directly from them about their experiences in Second Life is invaluable and enlightening.
From Hammer to Pixel
November 10, 2021This week we considered the propositions of the late 20th Century Canadian media theorist Marshall McLuhan. He suggested that the ‘medium is the message’ and that electric (as it was known at the time) media was returning the world to the state of a ‘global village’.
Teamwork and Collaboration
October 20, 2021Sitearm Madonna joined the class to make a presentation called Composing for the New Era – Teamwork and Collaboration Online. The version of the talk in the following video is from a later presentation of the same talk to the Nonprofit Commons this year.
Autumn semester 2021
September 27, 2021Welcome to the module ‘Virtual Environments: Is one life enough?’ being offered as an elective module to students of Technological University Dublin School of Creative Arts and Dublin School of Archtitecture.
Classes will start on 6th October on Wednesdays at 3:00 pm for two hours. We meet online every week at TU Dublin in Second Life. Please note: you will need a Mac or PC desktop or laptop to access Second Life – you cannot do so with a mobile device.
Full details about the module are available to eligible registered students on the university VLE, Brightspace, where you may self-enrol. Read the Introduction unit carefully where you will find instructions on how to access Second Life and set up your personal avatar. Learning how to get around the virtual world and familiarising yourself with the environment and how to control your avatar will take a few hours so give yourself plenty of time before class starts.
Please read pages 1 to 9 in the column on the right also. If you would like to find out more about what to expect during the semester read the posts in this blog: all class since 2009 have been summarised.
If you have any problems email John O’Connor at TU Dublin.
This semester we will be working with Prof Murat Gülmez (aka Magua) and his students and will be spending much of our time with Lissena Resident, also known as Wisdomseeker, and her team at Whole Brain Health on Inspiration Island.
Class 12: Team Project presentations
May 6, 2021
Sitearm Madonna recorded the students’ presentations and also completed the post production work to shape the result, for which we are most grateful.
Thanks are also due to Andrew Sullivan at Montana State University Billings, who provided the Heavy Industry student presentation region for the evening.
Finally, in addition to welcoming our module guest speakers and friends, it was a great pleasure to have members of the Virtual Worlds Education Round Table join us.
Congratulations are due to the students for the excellent quality of their projects, both in terms of content, research and presentation.
Class 10: Inspiration Island
April 22, 2021We were hosted by Wisdomseeker (Lissena) at the beach on Inspiration Island this week. Wisdom leads Whole Brain Health which is a community of creative elders in SL. The island is a wonderful place to explore with a range of programmes and interactive activities, such as yoga, t’ai chi, qi gong among others, designed to support heath and wellbeing at any age while having fun.
Thank you to Sitearm Madonna for recording the class. The quality of John’s voice is poor so please excuse this – fortunately he didn’t have too much to say this week!
Virtual Environments: Is one life enough? 