It is a beautiful place with fantastic piano music, and a location of SL that is a definite must if you like music, gardens, and friendly folk talking about philosophy, art, and science.
Be warned though, the music can be addictive, it kept me there much longer than I intended. It was a welcome relief after trying to remember the names of all the drugs at the VMD location! Of Warburton’s categories, I would say that this is an example of innovative use of SL through establishing a community presence, and through creating social rich interactions.
There was a group discussion going on in the garden area, and it is interesting how real life like I acted. I kept my distance, and sat a little further from the group so that I didn’t disturb them. It didn’t feel right to just go up and sit among them as they seemed to be in class mode. If I recall correctly, they were talking philosophy trying to prove that they are human!
Anyway, because of the serious discussion going on, I was very aware of my “Self”. Maybe now in my 30’s I’m getting older and wiser, but I was tempted to go over and dance on their table just for a laugh, so just maybe …
The location was very organized with a welcome package, and a map of the entire area. There was also a schedule of weekly activities, so I have taken note of that and will be visiting every once in a while to enjoy the music, and listen to what’s being discussed. An interesting benefit of using SL I’ve noticed, is that even if you’re a complete stranger, and not officially a member of a community, no one seems to mind if you sit somewhere nearby and just listen to an interesting discussion, something perhaps which you wouldn’t do in “real” life.
Keywords: E-Learning, IDEL11, Second Life, SL
Comments
Hang on to this thought – we’ll come back to the idea of presence in week 10, and I am intrigued to find out more about how you see the concepts of presence and community relating to each other.
In fact – your experience of being first at the periphery reminds me of Lave and Wenger’s (1991) notion of legitimate peripheral participation (c.f. http://www.infed.org/biblio/communities_of_practice.htm )
> Anyway, because of the serious discussion going on, I was very aware of my “Self”.<
What do you mean by ‘Self’ here? I’m deeply curious as to how it relates to table dancing :P
Have you read Boellstorff (2008)? I’d be quite interested to see how you compare your adventures in SL to his.
Hi Clara,
Yes i've read Boellstorff. But I need to read again because there's alot to digest. I also listened to one of his lectures on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmghOAY01aI
By "Self" here, I'm refering to that virtual projection/extention of myself into SL. Also in SL I've noticed that I'm always aware of myself because I'm always infront of my eyes. Which is strange but more fun! Flying when I can't see myself doesn't seem to be as exciting as when I can see my virtual character fly. but anyway, I'm about to publish a blog about identity.
I mentioned table dancing because when I'm in SL, I wonder about how much do I need to behave as I do in real life? I mean I've always thought it would be funny in RL if I could just walk into a lecture hall and do silly things just because I like to imagine absurd situations.
And here we have SL where I actually can do all the strange things that I can't in the real world, but I'm feeling restrained by my real life long training. I'm dissapointed in myself Clara. You know what? tonight I'm going into SL, I'm going to find a serious lecture, and I'm going to dance on the tables. They can't track my real life identity right?
:) I guess the thing is, just because it’s a different world doesn’t mean there are different rules. The social practices we have in RL we bring across in to SL. One of the reasons we don’t table dance in lectures in RL is because we can see our actions effect other people, maybe hurt or discomfort them. Perhaps there’s some element of this at play in your restraint?
Maybe it also says something about how much Ellis inhabits the avatar? It reminds me a little of Gee’s (2003) story about feeling that making his Arcanum character Bead Bead sell the ring an old man had given her was just wrong. He says ‘I wanted her to be a creature who acted more intelligently and cautiously, a creature who could eventually look back on the history of her acts without regret’ (2003: 57). Maybe when the character we are ‘playing at’ (and I put that in speech marks because I mean playing in a non-trivial way) is in some way ourselves this kind of struggle is even stronger.