Small Snippets

Today I had a quick meeting with my group, we had to decide on a way of presenting our group information for the brief. I put forth the idea of doing a Pecha kucha type presentation. Its a style of presenting where the are 20 slides that last for 20 seconds, making it quick and easy. This style also uses pictures and visuals with just small headings or words, text is minimal or not included. Everyone agreed that this would be perfect and that they hadn't done it before. I also offered to make the slideshow, it should be easy enough they only thing is I will have to ask how images are brought into second life, im not sure how i physically get our slideshow to be visible in it. So until I learn that i will just be gathering the images that the team is sending me via email (small notes beside each so I know where to put them) and organizing them into a nice easy to digest visual that follows the points set out in the brief. One member, Katie, put out the suggestion that we could use...

This week in class we talked about our information online and how companies are paying to get your details or hiding hidden contracts within terms and conditions. Such as when a ad for cameras pops up on YouTube and you had only been looking at them earlier in the week. Its a very scary thought in my opinion, to know that you have very little security online, we are made to think we are in control when the reality is we have very little. The only thing we control over is what we share but many have already signed away so much to many websites, especially Facebook and since you can never delete a Facebook account (only deactivate it) your every post and photo is permanently stored away. Its a thought I prefer not to think about or dwell on, even though it is terrifying its one of those things that cant be helped, if someone really wants your info they will get it whether its by hacking or stalking. Another thing we spoke about was using the cloud to store data when the reality is its...

I wasnt able to attend week 4's class since it had been moved to Thursday and I had work. This class however kicked off with the group project #MeToo, our groups for it have been changed to account for the new students taking part. It took a bit of coaxing and name calling before everyone began to talk freely. I voiced my opinion and understanding of the title of the brief initially, my point wasn't put across very well but I was trying to explain how non-threatening it is to share information online. Many people keep coming forward about there sexual harassment experiences and the point I was making was how the first person to come forward was at a major risk because she had no idea if anyone would listen to her, or if she would be fired or told to stay quiet but since her voice was heard and action was taken against the abuser many more people are able to come forward without as big of a threat of loosing your career etc. This is good and bad, because many people find i...

This week we were joined by a class of students who had taken the module 'second life' in a previous semester. Everybody was very enthusiastic and took part in the class even more so than the main group. It was refreshing to have more voices and interaction withing the class. We had also been put into groups for our group project #MeToo. Our aim this class was to understand how teams work, who is the leader and how they become one and how people work and communicated together in a team. Sitearm Madonna was a lecturer i think, he prepared a presentation in advance and went through it with us in second life. The slideshow was on Team operations tips, even though I found it very useful i also thought the information on it was fairly basic and easy to understand. One of the main things I have noticed is how because we are communicating online, which is very difficult due to peoples internet dying and voices merging together, it always makes it harder to dive into difficult topi...

This weeks class kicked off with a discussion on blogs we had researched and it led into the tone your blog can create. Some examples of peoples blogs we looked at were Dolce Merda, she comes across as a very friendly  person while Chris Brogan used his blog to advance his marketing career so the tone was relaxed and chatty. We also looked up ways to improve your own personal blog so that people will want to read it. During class we had two surprise visitors come in, neither of them were part of the class but surprisingly contributed in a positive way. They initially started clapping constantly, nearly making me cry with laughter but after asking them about themselves one of the men said he was from America and has been on SL for over 10 years, he made a point about how there are a lot of toxic people on SL. I haven't personally met anyone like that yet but I can see where he is coming from because people find it easy to hide behind screens when saying rude things since there is ...

I joined Second Life as part of a module in college. I didn't know what to expect at first, what the quality of the game would be and just how realistic it was. Turns out it is exactly what the title says, its a second life for some with places from the real world mixed with a certain level of fantasy. The first thing I wanted to do was customize my character which turned out way more difficult than I thought so now I have a cat stuck to my shoulder. Ill figure out how to remove it eventually. Not much happened in class it was mostly just figuring out the basics and helping everyone to connect. The work given was to find 3 places of interest and document them on a blog. The first place I went was Korea, I thought it would the country but no it was a clothing store, everything is confusing. I found a sign giving away free socks but I couldn't figure out how to take them which was heartbreaking. I left the socks in search for more. I went to another are title Korea this time...