Final Reflections

I went into this class with an open mind having no idea what to expect. Along the way I have been pushed out of my comfort zone to interact with social media platforms that I have never used before. When told that our class was being combined with students from Dublin, I was excited and interested to see how our projects would turn out.

This project definitely challenged my group as well as many others more than I originally imagined. Very quickly we discovered that meeting up in the virtual realm was basically impossible with our varying schedules. Our forms of communication were highly limited as well being that not all of the members in our group able to access the same types of technology.

We plugged along and decided that it was best for our group to split up into groups of two for the presentation. Two of us could not attend class so that also added and extra layer of added stress. When it came time to actually make our presentation Second Life created many obstacles for me personally.

At first I did not have any currency so I could not upload my slides. Then when I finally got the slides uploaded and put them into my presentation, I could not get the slides to change on the presentation screen. Then I had my partner meet up with me in Second Life and discovered that my slides were not visible for her. Panicking slightly, I contacted our professor and he was extremely helpful. He had given us a new presentation tool that was much easier to use.

Day of our presentation my partner was actually able to see the slides! I feel that our presentation went pretty well and it was definitely something I have never experienced before. Even though there was not face to face contact I was still a bit nervous. Overall I think it went well and we managed to promote our organization, The Haven of Rest.

This class has taught me so much about virtual worlds and also the different types of social media out there. This class has shed a whole new light on the meaning of communication to me. I am thankful to have made it to the end and am happy that I decided to take this course.

Group Communication Reflections

My group has tried various types of communication while going through our project. We began with using our emails to communicate. As time moved on we decided to start a google document to list our ideas and roles for this project. While this was helpful it was difficult because you are not alerted when new information is added so you must check it manually yourself. We had even tried to use messaging through our twitter, but were challenged because there is a character limit to how much you can put in one message. Once we divided up our groups tasks we continued to use email as our main source of communication to update one another.

The next block in the road that we had was that only two members of our group could make the class meeting time. This overall resulted in us making two separate presentations for our class. The time difference with the Dublin students truly required us to think outside the box. Although we were never able to all meet on SecondLife at one time we still managed to achieve our end goal of spreading the word about our charity, Haven Of Rest in Akron, Oh. This class has been an interesting and eye opening experience to all that our online world has to offer.

Prosumer Vs. Produser

McLuhan had a very interesting interpretation of how prosumers and producers interact(Link-http://produsage.org/node/67). In our world McLuhan feels that prosumers possess the power to not only financially support products but give their own feedback and critiques to enhance the products further. In his presentation McLuhan is skeptical over whether the consumers simply punching buttons to provide feedback really gives them an active role in production. I understand where he is coming from, but even though they aren’t physically taking part in production they are still using their voice to alter the end result of what producers decide to do with their products in the future.

Produsers combine elements of producers and users. The users of objects are given the chance to give their opinions on the objects purchased.

This gave me a new outlook on the world of production. It can be especially tricky when incorporating online elements. Being that our world is ever changing I think McLuhan had some valid points that can be applied to our online world.

After having read the blog post about virtualworldnmfsfall11’s interpretation of some of McLuhan’s concepts, I learned to look at online forms of social media in a whole new light. (https://virtualworldnmfsfall11.wordpress.com/2011/10/29/painfully-coming-to-grips-with-the-medium-is-the-message/) One of the major principles that I found interesting was the concept that different forms of technology only serve as an extension of ourselves and a way to express our thoughts in an alternative way. The other interesting thought of McLuhan that was brought up was that we need to not focus on content all the time, but instead analyze the medium which is being used. If we focus on simply what we see and not how we are seeing it we could lose sight to why we were connected to that content in the first place.

Next I read chapter 3,”The Self and Second Life: A Case Study Exploring the Emergence of Virtual Selves, from the book Reinventing Ourselves: Contemporary Concepts of Identifying in Virtual Worlds (https://books.google.ie/books?id=48P5tVhoWaIC&pg=PR1&lpg=PR1&dq=Sabine+Lawless-Reljic&source=bl&ots=sWQ689YkX2&sig=Bxm9U6n83P-arLS6XPlTIY_2kNs&hl=en&sa=X&ei=h7fcVL6cEeWR7AaHooGgDw&ved=0CEsQ6AEwCDgK#v=onepage&q=Sabine%20Lawless-Reljic&f=false). This portion brought to my attention some interesting research being conducted over how people connect/disconnect their real life to their virtual life. Some people have a psychological connection to their character on Second Life and see it as an extension of themselves. However there are also those that choose to use Second Life as a chance to become someone completely new that they may not have the chance to be in real life. It shows how much diversity there is in virtual realms.

Virtual Regulation

After reading the blog post by Content & Licensing in Virtual Wolds by Shenlei Winkler, I realized how many legal issues exist in virtual realms today. The reason that so many problems exist is that the content creators for virtual realms are creating their own licensing agreements without the help of actual lawyers so many key parts of being left out of their paperwork. It is not their fault that they are unaware of all that needs to be included in these documents, but luckily steps are being taken to make it easier for correct documents to be formed. An easy template is being developed for those that wish to create licenses on their own.

I then read “The Law of Virtual Worlds”, which helped break down some of the recent cases and legal battles involved with virtual property trading and the rights of cyborgs. It is difficult because in many cases its hard to determine the right answer because in the end of the day all of this content is part of a virtual reality and is not truly tangible. However, many people do have a strong emotional connection and investment in virtual world. I feel that the most important aspect is that no emotional harm is created through these online worlds. They are meant to serve as a place for people to relax and escape their problems from the real world. Overall I think that the specifications on the laws of virtual realms will continue to change and adapt as time goes by. With all of the tech savvy masterminds out there it could take a lifetime to catch every person that copies content from other creators. There is still a lot to learn in order to make these online worlds truly “safe”.

Exploring Second Life…Take 2!

This week we had to explore second life with people that have similar interests to our own. I chose to explore with Amanda Montemayor (Blog-https://amandi2811.wordpress.com) and Becky (Blog-http://becktronsecondlife.tumblr.com). Being that we all love disney we chose to explore a place called “Disney Tribute- Magicland Park.” This was a truly incredible place that really reminded me of the Magic Kingdom park in Disney World. When you walk in you automatically see main street and a view of the Cinderella castle. I was so shocked at the amount of detail put into this place.

 

There were also many attractions there that you could actually ride! Here are pictures of just some of them.

Teacups! (Fantasyland)

 

 

 

It’s A Small World (Fantasyland)

Mark Twain Boat Ride (Frontierland)

Rocket ships (Tomorrowland)

Submarines (Tomorrowland)

Overall this was an incredible place and I definitely reccommend that you check it out!!!

 

 

 

Group Planning

My group had for our class project consists o Etain Riera (Blog- https://etainriera.wordpress.com/), Kay Kerenzy (Blog- https://lunaspikes.wordpress.com), and Alex Defabio (Blog- https://acd03.wordpress.com/). We had began our journey together by emailing back and forth trying to figure out one another’s schedules so we could meet up on second life. This became a little monotonous so one of our group members created a Doodle, which is an online poll that we could use to individually plug in our hours to see when we are all free. After this we realized that making group meetings was not going to be the easiest. So instead we chose to create a google doc that we all have access to. Here we brainstormed ideas together and broke up the duties for this project. We decided that each member would be responsible for one type of social media in order to get the word out about our chosen charity/organization, Haven of Rest, a homeless shelter in Akron, Oh. Although my group had a bit of a rough start, I think we are on the right track.

Blogs

As i visited other blogs I noticed many differences form my own. To begin dreamscape diary’s blog was well laid out and appeared to be focusing on the steps and experience that were used to incorporate augmented reality into our campus. Also professional citations were used in order to support his findings and research. Personally I feel that my own blog has a more lax feel at this moment in time.

The next blog that i visited was John O’Connor’s blog. I realized that this blog revolved around innovative businesses/inventions and relevant issues in today’s technologically savvy society. This blog was different than dreamscape diary’s and my own blog in that it seemed to cover a wider array of topics. Also it appeared as though there were less firsthand experiences and more personal opinions shared in this blog.

Another blog i viewed was DolceMerda’s blog. I got the impression that this blog was run by a woman and was centered around advertising and branding for different companies. It was very colorful and had a lot of logos and less text than the other blogs. It sparked my interest for this reason because it seemed well organized and very colorful. It appeared to me that this was more of a personal portfolio for her work with hand drawn sketches.

From there I chose to move along to BrainPicking’s blog. This was centered around the interesting idea of children’s books more recently addressing the LGBT community. This blog had a pretty even balance between visuals and written content. I thought the concept behind this blog was interesting and something that I never thought about previously. When thinking back on all of my childhood books I can hardly remember any books ever touching on these communities and I was never exposed to it or realized what it was until I got older. I think that the sooner we educate the future generations on this topic the better.

Another recommended blog that I decided to check out was the blog by Illustration Friday. I could clearly tell that this blog was centered around the illustrations by various and up and coming comic artists with all different styles. This blog definitely was more outside the box, but I appreciated the artistic touches being that i am a major within the arts. Any form of arts advocacy is something that I support wholeheartedly.

Next I hopped over to Chris Brogran’s blog. His goal for this blog was obviously to share his thoughts and tips on how to go about owning a business and interacting with different forms of social media. The interesting aspect in this blog was that he even had his youtube videos directly on his blog. So you could see him talk about the topics live and get a greater sense of who he is as a person and who is behind the blog.

The last blog i visited was by SylePantry. I personally appreciated this blog because I tend to be more of a girly girl that enjoys shopping and fashion. She put together outfits in which she listed where each item could be purchased. This blog was more used as a form of self expression.

It amazed me at how different each of these blogs were. Some were more politically or professional orieniented, while others focused on having fun or sharing their personal experiences/opinions. Blogs really are a multi-purpose form of media that can really be tailored to our own needs.

Exploring Second Life

So far my group has met up once on Second Life to explore The Free Dove. I was unable to attend so I explored this area on my own. Some other places that I also visited on my own time included some of the editor’s top picks including Isle of View, Winter Wonderland, and Lost Island. In all of these destinations I found the attention to detail to be very interesting. It also amazes me at the creativity and range of uses for Second Life. Some people use the site to connect with friends while others sell things through it. Before taking this class I was unaware that an avenue such as this one existed and that it could be so diverse.

Branding

I chose to read the article titled “The Lazy Person’t Guide to Personal Branding”, which included many helpful hints to develop and promote yourself professionally online. I really enjoyed this article because it had helpful hints from one of the largest career advancement sites, LinkedIn. Trying to promote yourself to potential employers can be intimidating. This article presented some valid points when creating professional profiles such as finding what make you unique and labeling your expertise. For me personally I feel that this will always serve as a work in progress due to how quickly the world changes.

There were some smaller tips that I felt this class has already encouraged such as using one username and photo for various profiles online to encourage consistency and make it easy for people to contact you on multiple platforms. Finally the concept about googling yourself came up, which I feel is one of the most important in today’s time. Employers will not hesitate to look you up so neither should you. Making sure that you are aware and thinking twice before posting online will save you a lot of trouble. One general rule of thumb that I personally like to follow is that you should not post anything online that you would not want your mother or boss to see. I like to think of online profiles as an extension of myself that should be treated with care.