Virtual Environments: Is one life enough?

CLASS SUMMARY:

The class started with each participant giving his/her elevator pitch. Most were able to deliver using voice, others texted their pitches which were then read out by Locks. Generally all did a good job and for us, there is a better sense of knowing who is behind the avatar which is the point of the exercise.

The discussion then focused for a while on the creation of a personal brand or online identity and why this is important. The class identified reasons such as being in control of your own reputation, establishing yourself as a trustworthy brand or person for professional purposes, amongst others, as reasons why they would be looking at creation of an identity. We briefly looked at the people behind the blogs visited during the last weekly activity and tried to determine what impression we got from their blogs … if we got a good sense of who they were and what they were about … why we should be interested in what they had to say and if we could trust them.

The issue of how to present yourself was also raised and this led into a discussion of whether, and indeed how, to keep professional and personal separate in your online identities and also, why you might want to do that.

Coming back to identity within  SL, this starts with the naming of our avatars, designing the physical shape, selecting clothing and accessories and so on. Tae explained the context from which the Acuppa Tae name and avatar emerged and some of the issues about maintaining an alternative personal identity, explaining that the real life John O’Connor was beginning to replace the SL identity of Tae – particularly in twitter. The concept of managing this persona, or personal brand, in a professional manner was considered leading to discussion around the development of online networks using tools like twitter and Facebook.

We ended the week’s discussion by briefly going beyond the self (personal identity) and  looking at how online relationships (professional and personal) are established and maintained, the importance of trust and the need for appropriate conventions and rules of behaviour to support online communities. This will be continued next week.

Finally, Tae drew everyone’s attention to page 6 in the right hand column describing how the module will be assessed, the schedule and criteria. It is very important to understand this fully. If you have any questions post them here, in twitter or Facebook or ask at the next class.

All participants were given their L$300 stipend last week.

ACTIVITIES FOR NEXT CLASS:

1. Go outside your established community/group (eg, this class group) in SL and make contact with at least two people relevant to your interests (artist, teacher, selling online, etc). Write a post on your blog explaining the relevance of these new contacts you have made, what you discussed and how to met and/or approached them.
2. Discuss with your group and choose a social network to create  profiles for your avatar  and link your blog to this profile. Use this profile to connect with others in your community as appropriate to your group project.
3. Blog post: Reflect on why you and your group chose the social network platform you have chosen to use.