Danny - Week 2 photoblog

Hey guys, I just visited several new places and met some some other visitors there. I've found SL is really a nice platform to meet people from different backgrounds all over the world.
First is Venexia, a castle-like building with medieval decorations. There were shining footprints ushering visitors to a boat to cross over the lake. And the most interesting thing was the donation plate held by a statue.

Then I went to second destination - the House of Parliment. I saw a lot of posters of semi-nude ladies on the wall and I was not sure whether they were actually on the parliment wall in real world. Perhaps I should not take these posters too seriously. Because SL is NOT a replica of real world.

London 2012 Olympics was really a hot destination now. There were crowds of people dancing on the square. I chatted with an avatar whose user was from Brazil. The talk was very enjoyable. It seemed that she was really into the Olympic Games and kept talking about Brazilian athletes.

Bar Zero with crowded with a lot of customers who were dancing in the pool. But I did not know how to join them. All of them were continuously swinging and dancing, with no talk at all.

R U there

R U there is a film about SL. It's set in Taipei and is a Dutch/French Production

http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2010/05/second-life-at-cannes.html

Serenity - Week 2 Photoblog

 Hello everyone! I went travelling to quite a few different places this week, so this is a bit of a long post. I've also put the Slurl to any place that I felt you guys might want to check out as well, though I wasn't sure how to make it direct link to Second Life. That means you'd have to go into the viewer and then paste the link into the address bar within the program. I tested it myself, so I'm pretty sure it works!

The first place I visited was found by opening the world map, and choosing a random destination. Though, in truth, it wasn't the first place I tried that for, it was just the first place I could actually enter once I had teleported to the region. My first three or so tries resulted in areas that I couldn't go into unless I had payment information set up, so they were obviously private sims, possibly similar to Language Labs.

As you can see from the pictures, the area was a bowling alley! Complete with retro decor and music from the fifties, the whole area was really well built. Sadly, no other residents were there, but names still on the scoreboards told me that even if it isn't busy all the time, people certainly do use it.

I played a game by myself, which was done by equipping a bowling ball that the area gave you and then zooming into first person mode. It was actually a little harder to get strikes than I thought it might be, but I still got a much higher score than I would in real life.

I forgot to take a picture of it, but behind me was all the fifties decor, complete with jukeboxes and an Elvis Presley cutout.

You can see my score on the board above me.

This sim is a great example of the potential Second Life has for things that much more complex than just walking around and looking at the pretty environments (as much as I enjoy that aspect). I think we should all meet up here one day and have a game together!

Bowl-a-Rama
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Business%20District%20Lima/210/200/23

The next place I visited was on the recommended list of hot spots for people to chat with. London City is, as you might be able to tell from the name, based off London, and is complete with a dance floor, lots of stores, and tributes to the Olympics everywhere. I should also mention that they had a small but very helpful newbie area, with clear signage and animations to try out.

This is a fairly clear sign that this sim is frequented often, I think.

Sitting back and watching the others dance while listening to their conversations.

 Unfortunately, the people at this sim weren't very friendly to outsiders, and the majority of the conversation was sort of inane and often sexual, so I'm not sure I'd actually bother going back. There are definitely more exciting places to visit.

The next place I visited was one that I'd seen on the hotspots for a couple of weeks now, Club Pulse. Unfortunately, there was no one else at the club, though the music sounded good and the sim design was fantastic. They have an official website, and seem to be based in Australia, so I would have just logged in at a time when no one is online.

Very techno/dance atmosphere, wouldn't you agree?

I'm planning to head back there later in the week at a more appropriate time, and I put the Slurl up in case any of you guys want to check it out as well.

Club Pulse
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Club%20Pulse/75/187/34

At this point, I realised that I had still not bought myself a dancing animation, so I actually spent a good hour and a bit finding a nice once. I also got sidetracked and purchased myself a new outfit and hair...

The hair came with a fox tail too, but I took it off lest I was thought to be a furry...

 Anyway, then I went to find somewhere a little more peaceful. I had seen Tempura Island come up in a list of recommended sims to visit online, so I decided to take a look.

It is huge, and very well designed, though I'm not sure on why it's called Tempura... there is apparently a ballroom at the end of this large bridge that I'm standing on in the photo, as well as meditation areas down to the left and right.

Tempura Island is beautiful, but sadly a bit too much for slower internet connections.

I didn't take a photo of him, but as I looking at the view a nice avatar in a suit and glasses who had been standing behind me struck up a conversation. He was very nice, and was starting to tell me about the area, but my viewer crashed and I decided that not logging back into my last location might be a safer idea.

If you think your internet can handle it, definitely go and visit. The people were friendly, and I really want someone to try out the ballroom and tell me what it's like!

Tempura Island
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/tempura%20island/125/66/33

The next couple of sims that I visited may seem a little strange to most of you, as they were roleplay areas. I'm actually an avid roleplayer in real life, and in the past have been part of several online roleplay communities, so I thought I might take a look at what Second Life has to offer.

The first sim I visited was called Dead End, which said it was a serious non-supernaturally based urban roleplay. When you first teleport in, you are in the OOC (out of character) area, and are given the option of chosing from four different roles.

The four posters on the wall are the four different character types.

I was initially excited by this roleplay, as the rules looked to be well thought out, and it seemed fairly gritty. They also had rules banning weapons, as all combat was to be done via text (as with every other action, meaning that I wouldn't have had to search for animations.).

I quickly realised that this might be a slightly different experience than what I wanted.

However, when I walked into the second part of the OOC zone, I noticed a lot of the recommended content for the roleplay was sexually based. This made me double check the information for the sim, and while the description made no mention of it, all the tags were things such as BDSM. Given that I was just looking for mature in the sense of serious themes and not pornographic, I left, disappointed.

I can't remember the name of this next sim, but it was empty when I arrived, even though it is listed as one of the main roleplay communities. Either everyone was roleplaying in another area of the sim, or there are set times in which everyone arrives to play. Either way, I'll have to come back again to find out.

The city itself was very well built, with a lot of effort put into the atmosphere, though an entire row of trees wouldn't load for me, no matter how long I waited.

Strangely, Bohemian Rhapsody was playing in the background.

I haven't put links to either of the roleplay sims, as I'm fairly sure that no one else in the class would be interested, haha. But let me know if you are!

I tried searching for Starry Night, and it no longer appears to exist, so I went and visited the next best thing - a sim set in space itself!

Space Park is not made to be accurate, I don't believe, but simply a very pretty sim set to look as if you're standing on rocks in space. I saw a couple of shooting stars in my time there, which was very cool, and there looked to be eight or nine other areas that you could teleport to, all of which are made by the same people, if not directly connected to Space Park.

This sim is very popular, and I can see why.

Strangely peaceful, for a virtual reality.

If you visit here (which you should!) just be aware that you need to change your time of day settings to midnight, otherwise the area doesn't look anything like it is supposed to.

Space Park
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Shinda/84/200/1560

There were actually four or five more places that I visited apart from these, but given that they were seemingly abandoned and didn't have anything extremely special about them, I omitted them from this post. The lack of people is sad to me, as when I first tried Second Life (only for a week or so) three or four years back, I remember there being a much higher population in general. I've read a lot of articles saying that the population of Second Life is on the decline, and sadly, given the amount of ghost sims and sims that no longer exist, I have to agree. One of the things I was most excited about having happen as a person bonus from the this paper was the prospect of making Japanese friends with whom I could keep my language fluency up with. Unfortunately, it seems that the majority of Japanese run sims have been deleted or no one goes there anymore, and even the Japanese Second Life forum hasn't had constant posting in a couple of years.

Why have so many people just stopped coming to Second Life? Is it, like what has happened to World of Warcraft in the past year, just due to fading interest, as what was once new and exciting ceases to be so? Is it because Linden Labs are too worried about money, as opposed to offering residents better options and freedom to do what they want? Or maybe it's to do with the fact that, compared with today's other virtual communities, such as MMOs, Second Life seems lacking in stability and certainly, for something that doesn't look that good, seems to be less than optimal for slower connections that can handle prettier and more modern games. What do you guys think?

Week 1: Yulia (article review)

Wang, Song, Xia and Yan's (2009) article discusses students' experiences and perspectives on Second Life (henceforth SL) as a platform for learning English. Although their research is quite narrow in terms of the scope of inquiry (small sample size) and context, there are a few points that can help us understand how to facilitate L2 or EFL learning process and what could cause hindrances.

Based on the narratives of the Chinese students who participated in the project, it can be inferred that we need to consider SL learning environment, communication, task partners and general feelings of our students. For some of them it is important "not to lose face" and have no associated anxiety to communicate with the native speakers. These two findings are good examples Krashen's affective filter – one of the hypotheses of his SLA theory. The higher the levels of anxiety are, the higher the filter is and hence, the more negative impact students’ anxiety might have on their success and progress in language learning.

Other than anxiety, students' success in language acquisition can be affected by other factors, such as motivation, self-image, identity, gender, confidence, etc. (Lightbown & Spada, 2006). 

Although the findings of this article are quite useful in terms of understanding the SLA process and integrating SL into language teaching, it can be inferred that not all learners might find SL helpful. Also, there are a few practical considerations that educational practitioners need to take into account.

First of all, it is almost a pre-requisite that SL users should not be technologically challenged. Wang, Song, Xia and Yan (2009) sampled university students, whose age range was from 19 to 23. These young people were experienced in using various gadgets and online communication tools and were computer literate, which explains why SL can be helpful. However, people who are not computer literate for various reasons, such as age, absence of financial resources to purchase a computer and start learning how to use it, etc., in my view, would probably find SL challenging and prefer a conventional way.

Another consideration and limitation of SL is people’s learning styles. Not all learners are visual (Lightbown & Spada, 2006). Likewise, some learners prefer face-to-face communication to an online one.

And finally, to run SL application one needs to have a powerful computer with very good graphics and fast broadband, which not all language schools can afford and certainly not every individual. So there is a limitation on the target audience/learners that could make use of SL.

However, the presence of these limitations does not mean SL cannot be used as an educational platform. The awareness of its limitations and knowing our learners well (their styles, readiness to use such technologies, etc.) will help us understand who might benefit from it and how best to organise the learning process in SL so it facilitated students’ success in language learning.

References:

Wang, C., Song, H., Xia, F. & Yan, Q. (2009). Integrating Second Life into an EFL program: Students' perspectives. Journal of Educational Technology Development and Exchange, 2(1), 1-16.

Lightbown, P. M., & Spada, N. (2006). How languages are learned. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.

Danny - Week 2 Review on Integrating Second Life into an EFL Program

 Integrating Second Life into an EFL Program: Students’ Perspective

This paper aims to discover various facets of language learning within SL from the perspective of Chinese students in a provincial full-time university. It mainly focuses on EFL learning in SL in terms of users’ perceived technology readiness, their perceptions, and the EFL Program implementation. With the support of previous literature, SL can be regarded as an appropriate virtual platform for language learners to interact with native speakers of a target language. Through an evaluation research approach proposed by Krathwohl , McMillan & Schumacher, this paper describes the study’s context and its implementation procedures, and discusses the evaluation results and implications, sharing with the audience some considerations for integrating SL into EFL program(Krathwohl, 1998; McMillan & Schumacher, 1997). Finally, the readiness of Chinese students to use SL for EFL is proved sufficient; the enjoyment of SL as a language learning platform is acknowledged by the participants.

The most important point I got from this article is that the success in EFL learning of SL platform larges depends on the willingness and collaboration of both sides of native speakers and language learners, which indicates the potentialities of business operations in SL involving users willing to pay and hired language educators motivated by the pay. It inspires me of great interest in the construction of constraint mechanism, in ESL program on SL platform, of both sides of participants, or customers and service, in business practice rather than academic use. Moreover,  I learnt that SL provides a great chance for language learners   to engage in multiple literacy practices in a appealing, friendly, and contextual virtual space. SL breaks down these limitations in real world. I also realized that the technological skills are crucial for individual user in the success of EFL learning.

Reference 

Wang, X., Song, H., Xia, F., and Yan, Q. (2009). Integrating Second Life into an EFL Program: Students’ Perspective. Journal of Educational Technology Development and Exchange, 2 (1), 1-16

Serenity - Week 2 Reading Summary

Applying Constant Comparative and Discourse Analyses to Virtual Worlds Research

This research article had two goals, the first was to look at which analytical approaches are best for dealing with domain specific research questions within Second Life. Though this was not specifically drawing any conclusions about Second Life itself, I chose it in order to better understand what methods I might use in my own assessments within the program, as well as to get a better understanding of the scope of research that can be done. The second, and more minor goal was to look at students' reactions to a Second Life learning experience.

The research itself was a case study of students learning about Second Life and its educational potential, in which all the classes were taken through Second Life as well as having weekly blogs on their experiences. These communications were then (after being transcribed, in the case of the audio) compared for constantly occurring themes. The main ones found were frustration, appreciation for the program, and socialisation. Secondly, a discourse style of analysis was used to look at how and when expressions of frustration were used. 

From this article, I did learn a number of things that could be helpful in the future, such as what recording software might be useful and other audio programs to use in the event that the Second Life speaking interface fails. Unfortunately however, I felt that in the end, it didn't offer me the critical analysis of different analyses that I was expecting. That said, there were several other interesting points that I found. Though not to do with the topic of analysis, this research found that students were more vocal with their frustrations to do with the topic at hand than they might be in a real world classroom, as well as a strong aspect of peer-to-peer assistance. The researchers offer no reasoning behind either of these occurrences, however, I believe that the first point happens due to the sense of safety that using an avatar gives a person. Just like how users in Second Life feel more comfortable dressing in ways they would never do in reality, these students felt more at ease voicing their unhappiness with some event within the classroom. Though with more aggressive players this may lead to unwanted behaviour (Trolling, griefing, etc), with more shy students this environment could help them to open up to discussions and only help their learning capabilities. As for the peer-to-peer assistance, the research suggested that the majority of it was happening through private messaging. This makes sense, as within a real world classroom, students are unable to freely assist each other without risking interruption to the lesson. Second Life, through its multitude of communication methods, allows many different conversations at once, and if the majority are text based, gives the user time to go over anything they might have missed. This allows the students to freely communicate with each other while the lesson takes place, though this does have the negative possibility that the students may become too focused on their own conversations.


Reference 

Leong, P., Samuel, R. H. J., and Boulay, R. (2010). Applying Constant Comparative and Discourse Analyses to Virtual Worlds Research. Journal of Virtual World Research, 3 (1), 3-26

Powerpoint Script

Here's the script needed to create a powerpoint presentation in SL. I'll show you how to use it on Tuesday. You need to copy it exactly from the first   //  to the word owner.



// PPT script, advances pages on touch

// Retrieved from Free SL Scripts on www.gendersquare.org/sl

integer access=1; //Change the value of access. Access=0 means owner only to advance the pages, Access=1 means all can
integer choice;
integer number;
default
{
    state_entry()
    {
        llSetText(llGetObjectName(), <0,1,0>,1);
        number = llGetInventoryNumber(INVENTORY_TEXTURE);
        choice = 0;
    }    
    on_rez(integer param)
    {
        llResetScript();    
    }
    touch_start(integer numbert)
    {
        if(access || llDetectedKey(0)==llGetOwner())
        {
            if (choice>=number)
            {
                choice =0;
            }
            string name = llGetInventoryName(INVENTORY_TEXTURE, choice);
            if (name != "")
            {
                llSetTexture(name, ALL_SIDES);
                llSetText(llGetObjectName()+"\n"+(string)(choice+1)+"/"+(string)number+" name: "+name, <0,1,0>,1);
                ++choice;
            }
        }
    }
    changed(integer change)
    {
        if(change & CHANGED_INVENTORY)
        {
            llResetScript();
        }
    }
}
// This script was modified by spiderONE (spider Corleone - owner of Spider's Web). Please Do not delete my credit.
// This script was further modified by Eloise Pasteur to take out the need to reset, tidy up some messy code and offer an option to restrict clicking on the slide to just the owner.

Sunya Wk2

Hi Erveryone

I would like to share my experience reading an interesting paper, Where the Language Worlds meet: Combing Real Life and Second Life in Classroom Material by Karina Silba and Jacob Larsen, Iowa States University. This paper discusses how to best blend Second Life material with classroom activities. It focuses on how tasks that utilize the strenghts of Second Life develop and how to implement these in classroom practice of the four skills.

This paper concludes that Second Life is a useful tool in the language classroom because it has the potential to provide learners with a more enriching learning experience than paper based materials alone. Second Life is also useful as it can help to ensure learners engaging with the subject matter in creative, productive, and meaningful ways. There different media types educators can use to create learning environments that are adapted to learners need. However, when designing activitie in Second Life, teachers need to consider both learners' Second Life skills and their language proficiency to avoid frustration and negative effects on motivating. In order to accomplish the class objective teachers should ensure that learners have ability to do the activity and perceived it as purposeful.

I think this is a usful paper discussing how to blend Second Life for teaching and learning language. However, there will be some of the challences that students and  teachers might face when using second life and this paper need to do further discussion. For example, the cost and high technology requirements. In order to learn and teach a language in second life both teachers and learners need a relatively fast computer with a good graphics card and brodband internet access. This is a kind of techincal issue that I faced when I have joined languagelab.com. I could not involve for the whole activities in an event at languagelab.com because I did not have headphone when speaking causing everyone in the group echoing, so I had to leave the group early. Will be here again next week.

                                                                            See you 
                                                                            Sunya

Sunya Wk2

At Virlantis Island chating with Iruda

At Cypris Chat

Can't chat because of technical problem no sound

Have you seen my photo?

I would like to summary what I have done so far.
On Wednessday night, 25 2012, I enroled to learn English at Language Lab.com.

First of all I went to website http://www.languagelab.com/ buying 14 days trial class, costing $NZ19.95, paying by creditcard.
After finishing enrolling process, I got username and level of class to go to.

LanguageLab then provided me with a program to download for logging in. I noticed that when logging in, I need to use differnt username but the same password from logging in to second life.

After logging in, I met with Kat at the welcoming area. She invited me to her desk showing me how to book for a class and how to get aroud language city. I did not take photo at her desk.

After finish talking with her, I went back to welcoming area, I met with Jason. I did not ask how long he has been enroled at language city, though long time. I introduced that it is my first day here and he gave me an advise that because I enrolled for 14 days trial which allows me to attend only one class but as many events as I like, I should attend as many events first before atteding the class.

I then booked an event at 10 pm-11pm Australia/Sydney time, which is a local time
The location of the event is at Greedale:Festa Junina.

I could not find the way to get there, I went to ask Kat again as she is around welcoming area and she show me how to get there.

I went to the event centre early so I had time to look around.

When the event start, I met Jason again.

I could not join the event for the whole period of one hour because of the technical problem. I did not have head phone and if I am there in the event that cause echo to everyone in event so I have to leave. Next time when I went to language city I will bring headphone.

After leaving English city, I went to Virlantis Island. I met with Iruda, who is Korean. The class discussion is about autopilot. Waite for a while, there was no one turn up. During discussiong, I need to explain her what autopilot is so on an so forth. It is a discussion for the beginer, but I learned there that how I can learn english in second life. I know how to join a group. I know when people come for discussion.

After leaving Virlantis Island, I went to Cypris chat. Before I turned up few people already there. I managed to join a group. The discussion is about the movie. We waite for a while for the other to turn up and a few more arrived. However, we could not make any discussion becaus of technical problem, no soud.

In a coming week, I am going to visit language city and try to learn more English in second life there.

Will share my experience with everyone again.

See you
Sunya
 

Sunya Wk2

Hi Everyone,

Hi Everyone

Welcoming area

Wednessday 25, 2012, I enroled to learn English at Language Lab.com.

Welcoming area

Meet Kat at Welcoming area

At the event

At the event

Bird eye view at the event

Inside event centre

Meet student at event centre

Meet students at event centre

Last photo befor leaving event centre because of technical problem, no headphone make echo to everyone in the group.

Photoblogging for wk1- place i have been to in SL.

This week`s Tuesday class was quite a joyful moment for me, because this is a totally new adventure world to a game dumb person – me. Before this class, I have never played a role in the ‘Second Life’ (SL) virtual world, and have never tried online games either, so such an experience is totally new and fascinating to me. I have registered the log in name and my avatar as well. She is wearing an ‘all black’ jacket with a creamy skirt and has got a ‘poly tail’ hairstyle currently, isn’t she cool?

I re-practiced new tools for my avatar`s walk, run and flying activities,

Flying across ocean to grassland

Walking on grassland looking at ocean. This avatar can fly lower and higher as you want her to, and also the direction is totally controlled by you as well. The appearance can be altered by you, however, I have already tried this during class time, so I am not going to change any of my avatar`s appearance anymore, because she quite adorable already. Just kidding… I chose a destination called ‘Job Art Expo Art Gallery’. My avatar was walking in the hall and there are so many pictures hanging on the wall, similar as a gallery in our realistic world. When I pressed a picture hanging on the wall, a small notice popped out saying ‘an object named Object owned by Marco Beck (marco2007.beck) has given you this notecard: ‘Bio Vasco Lago Pito aka Jazz62 Masala.’ Then I clicked the ‘keep’ button, which jumped out a description about a photographer named Berta Merit`s bibliography. After I read this description, I knew this person learned photography by himself, and he is a street – photographer, passionate about photography and likes to photograph people and their culture and environments. In the meantime, my earphones were full of relaxing music - European, smooth Jazz music, and this was quite touching. As I was reading the description, I quite enjoyed the music as well, which made the mind relaxed and concentrating on reading - very nice – welcoming and matching the photography theme. After that, I clicked on the link this note recommended to me. The pictures are mostly black and white, and one album was ‘unique’ with special effects. After I closed the website, I kept walking, and clicked another poster on the wall, which brought me to another person`s description, Lollipop Merlin. I looked at her description as well, and which described her passionate field and so on. Above all, I sort of understand what the ‘ Job Art Expo Gallery’ is and I am looking forward to seeing and learning more in this SL world.

week 1 reading: identity

This week I choose Delia Dumitrica and Georgia Gaden's research article about gender performance in second life to read. The research is conducted from the view of a post-structuralist feminist and through the method of autoethnography which means all results come from the researchers' own experiences. In the virtual world, the boundaries of gender binary are obvious, not only through looks but gestures, even animals are gendered. At first these female researchers felt uncomfortable and scared in a new environment that almost all of the female avatars have slender bodies, tiny waists, big breasts, long hair and revealing clothing, so some of them swapped their avatars to male. I don't understand why they had this discomfort, because one of the most interesting things for me in SL is I can change my avatar's body features and choose any clothes as I like, which can't be achieved in reality. It's a second life and people get a chance to become perfect, then why give up. However, I truly agree with the researchers' words that although we rationally knew the visual representations of the avatars are nothing like the real-life bodies, we unconsciously imagined them in our minds in association with their avatars. If your look is male, people will regard you as a male in SL, even though the way you speak, manner and interpretation of experience are all belongs to female.

After a time, case, they decreased their initial heightened gender-awareness gradually and focused on the discursive practice. They found that how gender is 'done' in SL resides not only at the intersection between our own gendered perspectives and the platform, but also in the technical skills we have. I don't think our identities are fixed in SL, they may be changed because of appearances, surroundings and technologies. This is why the game is attractive. It's life but beyond life.

Wendy

Week1: Danny's Review on Knee-High Boots and Six-Pack Abs

Summary

This paper aims to discover, from the perspective of feminist, the experience and performance of gender in Second Life, an online platform, with a proposition that the gender is determined by both their own situated perspective and the vision provided by the virtual infrastructure, social and technical. Finally, through the autoethnographic methods, the authors argue that the relation between gender and virtual world is complicated and multifaceted; the position of the researcher in real life and the dominant discourses in in-world should also be taken into consideration in the studies on online experience in virtual worlds.

Review

SL is interesting not because of its function as an online game for global players to compete, but because of its limitlessness for residents or citizens to spend time as his or her will, which is a construction of “oasis of the surreal” (Ludlow & Wallace, 2007), instead of a replica of real world. Comparing with other online games, SL liberates players from competition, allowing them to spend much more time shaping their avatars’ physical appearance, equipping gears of their interests, interacting with others, and constructing their own world. In my opinion, it brings great convenience to practice and research in the fields of “soft sciences”, such as linguistics, sociology, and philosophy.

In this paper, the authors carried out their exploration with the method of autoethnography, which is quite controversial due to being too personal. Such critiques may derive from the ideas of those who believe in the reliability of data collection and analysis, which is much of quantitative methods. Autoethnography, however, is more of quantitative methods which traditionally involve both the researcher and the subject. According to my knowledge, qualitative methods can be as rigorous and reliable as quantitative methods only if they are carried out and analyzed in proper ways, for interviews, personal experiences are also important sources to researches. My suggestion for the paper is that surveys or statistics can make the argument more convincing.

Reference

Ludlow, P., & Wallace, M. (2007). The Second Life Herald. The virtual tabloid that witnessed the dawn of the metaverse. Cambridge: MIT Press.

Sunya: Sunya:

Sunya: Sunya:: Sunya: I visited Virlantis Island last week. Classroom Chating area I went in after class finished. I would like to experience how it ...

Serenity - Week 1 Reading Summary

The visual language of virtual BDSM photographs in Second Life.

This article discussed the social semiotics of BDSM related photographs within Second Life, specifically user's profile pictures.

Most of the findings were similar to those of BDSM photography within the real world, with typical BDSM fashion, women most commonly taking the role of of the submissive, and the photographs often having a more sexual nature (though with the dominant always clearly in control). They also contained objects commonly associated with BDSM, such as whips and cages.

One of the biggest differences between real world BDSM photography and those found in Second Life was the usage of outside locations and bright light sources. Keeping with the 'taboo' feeling of the practice, traditional BDSM photography does not usually include either of these, however the photographs found in Second Life had an unusually high percentage of both. This suggests a much greater acceptance of the lifestyle, as practitioners do not have to 'hide in the shadows' (especially as all the photographs looked at were publicly available.). Interestingly, another article from the same author supported this, describing the amount of BDSM porn available, from mainstream magazines to vendors giving avatars the chance for their own BDSM photo shoot (Bardzell & Bardzell, 2006).

One interesting conclusion was that through the unavoidable nature of the power lying with the photographer and not the viewer, BDSM imagery offers dominance to to submissives in the sense that they can assert their identity and force the spectator to look at them in the way they desire. Similarly, according to dominants “...offer up their bodies to the objectifying gaze of the spectator.” (p. 19), which gives them less power than one would assume from their chosen role.

Though an interesting article, I felt that it focused on describing only basic trends within BDSM photography, which also can be found in real world examples, and therefore lacked depth when discussing the most interesting issues, such as the differing levels of openness for BDSM between Second Life and reality, or on the issue of fluctuating power between the dominants and submissives due to way in which they have to communicate their roles according to what the interface allows.

References
Bardzell, S. (2010). Topping from the viewfinder: The visual language of virtual BDSM photographs in Second Life. Journal of Virtual World Research, 2 (4), 3-22

Bardzell, S. and Bardzell, J. (2006). Sex-Interface-Aesthetics: The Docile Avatars and Embodied Pixels of Second Life BDSM. Retrieved from http://www.ics.uci.edu/~johannab/sexual.interactions.2006/papers/ShaowenBardzell%26JeffreyBardzell-SexualInteractions2006.pdf

Danny - Photoblog 1st Week

22^nd July, 2012

It is the first time for me to successfully log in Second Life after the introduction lecture given by Darryl last Tuesday. For some reason unknown, previously I failed to log in SL with my own laptop, which delayed my access to it.

The exploration of virtual world began in the last spot where my avatar (created in the intro lecture) was when I quit SL. I chose a destination named Brasil Rio under Chat Hot Spot, which seemed to be a good place where newcomers like me can socialize. Twenty seconds after teleporting to the destination, my avatar was found among a dozen of other avatars (see photo 1), whose users were constantly chatting with one another in a language foreign to me.

All the female avatars were dressed up in shorts, highlighting their long legs, small waist, and big breasts; and male semi-nude to show off their massive chests, 6-abs, and inked skin. However, the costumes for my avatar were much of a hunting adventure, rather than their beach party.

Everyone around regarded me as an alien, requesting me to remove my shotgun at once with an excuse that he/she was told no one is allowed to carry a gun with. Felt being pushed aside, I decided to leave and explore other places.

photo 1: my avatar looks such an outsider among those figures with extremely masculine or feminine features

Then I browsed the titles of various destinations to see which one I would probably be interested in. Finally I clicked “The Brutal District” to look for players of my same kind.

The whole place was posted up with images of knives and swords (see photo 2), and I encountered a warrior-like avatar with a big gun in his hand (see photo 3).

At first the conversation was friendly and successful, but misunderstandings and embarrassment occurred over the topic about his family name “Kman” which was described by me as “exotic, sounds like not westerner”. He felt offended and pointed out that everyone is individualistic, and that I, as a college student majoring in English in the 5^th grade, should be aware of the rudeness of commenting one person’s family name.

I felt astonished since I did not expect that he would feel annoyed. I was just curious whether he is oriental, like me, since his family name was not a very common one in English according to my knowledge. Cultural shock? Taboo? Failure in intercultural communication? I had no idea.

photo 2: the Brutal District is overrun with posts of weapons

photo 3: a player was offended by me perhaps due to my lack of knowledge in cross-cultural communication.

Later on, I teleported to Sands of Persia, a place with exotic foreign elements (see photo 4), and visited the palaces and fountains located in there. At first it was merely like a tourist trip or theme-park adventure that every family would take their kids to. But when I came into these buildings and observed closely to the drawings on the walls, I found them mostly of pornography (see photo 5).

photo 4: buildings are all in Persian style

photo 5: semi-nude figures could be seen everywhere

The last place I went to is “Sin City”, probably named after the movie. I felt disgusted and decided to quit SL as I was a little overwhelmed by the boldness of violent and pornographic promotion all over the city (see photo 6). It should be noted that one can get access to this world only by changing his preference level from “semi-adult” into “complete adult”.

photo 6: the images of guns, violence, sex can be seen everywhere in the Sin City

The excitement of a new user in SL swiftly died out as I myself for the first time explored the virtual world. It seems that SL is not leisure to kill time, but an actual field for arguments and conflicts.

My findings are: each avatar is “obliged” to talk, dress, and behave in a certain way acknowledged by the vast majority of users within a certain destination; cultural differences need to be taken into consideration while communicating with users from different backgrounds, or it will lead to displeasure; elements of violence and sexuality are commonplace around various destinations of SL.

My question is: is it an obligation for a conversation participant from foreign background to comply with cultural or traditional customs in native background while the conversation is performed in native language? Is there any chance for both participants, from a certain culture alien to each other, to compromise their cultural stubbornness in order to reduce displeasure and embarrassment no matter which language they practically use?