2 posts tagged “games”
The Ohio Learning Network Second Life Learning Community in Northwest Ohio (whew!) met for the first time this year and discussed recent projects in Second Life. Radhika Gajjala is working with two graduate students on the a bi-lingual educational exchange project (English and Japanese).
Cassandra Jones is teaching "Women in Sci-Fi," an American Culture Studies class. She is using Second Life to explore fandom and the many ways in which people express their interest or participate in fandom. Cassandra lead the group on a field trip to the Star Trek Museum of Culture in Second Life. We were also joined by Montana Miller, Richard Anderson from Psychology and Chris Wammes from ITS.
A portion of the discussion was focused on creating a survey for students using Second Life. What sort of initial reactions, experiences, or change in online practice did Second Life facilitate? Perhaps these responses change over time as the students become more familiar with the virtual world.
We also dedicated a short amount of time looking at:
- A "chat logger" which records local chat even when your avatar is not there
- The new planetarium on BGSU island (SLURL) and
- The ongoing construction of the Writing Center on the BGSU virtual campus (SLURL).
Now this virtual world is completely internet based... no aps to download, no real learning curve. Definitely a different experience for me, coming from Second Life. But I was so interested because, well... the one thing I'm always saying to my friends as we sit on Second Life while watching TV in real life is: "I wish we had TV in SL." (My educational buddies are going to kill me for saying that.)
But isn't that what's coming? Isn't that where the Mac TV went wrong?! Where's my chat on TV?! I want to chat with my friends while watching movies or sports or whatever!
Anyways, here are a couple of screenshots... Besides the 'sponsored' content that Sony Pictures has provided for you to watch the makers of Gaia also have user uploaded content. This means Family Guy, Clerks 2 (full movie) and a lot more. I'm sure someone somewhere is cracking down on this and it may not go on much longer... but for now. It's one of the only reasons I've seen to even venture into Gaia Online.
