Hi, all! Welcome to the blog for the Collaboration in Networked Environments class in the graduate media studies department at the New School, Fall ‘10. We will explore the effects that networked environments have had on our exchanges, the hybrid models of communication that have developed, and the emergent process of networked collaboration. Please introduce yourself by adding a comment below and let the networking begin…
ps: if you add a comment and don’t see it display immediately, it’s because your first comment to the blog may need to be approved so as to prevent spammers (once you’re “approved” subsequent comments will not need approval)
Here is our final project. Collaboration was strong at the beginning and not so much in the end but nonetheless, it is done!!
Here is the link to view. Would’ve liked to have this set to music but that didn’t work out.
Here is another link to see a slightly different version with an edit from Jon. I am including both because I noticed that on Jon’s version, one of the slides was presenting upside down. The first link is aligned correctly but missing Jon’s additional piece.
Well now it’s all been said and done I’m very happy with the result our group came up with. I was happy with how the process went – there were snags along the way but that’s par for the course when organizing a group. I think we were able to really put together a cohesive virtual environment though and everything went together well.
screenshot of our Social Media and Gaming world inside Metaplace
screenshot of our Social Media and Gaming world inside Metaplace
Really I can’t think of a better way to try to present the information we collected than in a virtual world itself – that really worked for me. What really struck me from our class meeting with Rik was just how effective virtual environments and games can be for learning and education – the Holocaust Museum exhibit in SL was the perfect example of this. I stuck with the museum idea for my portion of the project (Katye and I shared the museum room) and was pleased with the results. In a PowerPoint presentation in real life you could do a lot of the same things that the museum room does – present the information, show pictures or videos of the games, but I feel like being there in a room filled with the actual (okay virtual) consoles and getting to interact with them is something that you could never match in other media. Actually on the same subject – the Smithsonian is putting on a games exhibit themselves. It’s not until 2012, but please believe I’m going to be there opening day. That’s what I really wanted to mirror with my part of the project – a space where people can connect with the history of games (in a social context rather than from the artistic one the Smithsonian is taking) on a more personal level. While watching the videos by clicking on the controllers may not be actually playing them – it gives you much more of a feel for the way games were and are than you could get simply by reading about it.
I also loved the fact that our choice of environment with Metaplace allowed us to be a little more whimsical than a normal presentation would have allowed. When talking about games, even in an academic sense, I think it’s important to remember the best part of games – they’re fun! Making them social hasn’t changed that, it’s only allowed us to have fun with each other rather than alone. We joked around as we went and even finished off with a rousing game of darts – a fitting end for the tour – and talked about games we liked and the fact that Josephine had met Peter Molyneux.
Very cool too was the fact that we had people turn up throughout the tour – people came and went as we showed Josephine around. I was glad that we’d made a space that people seemed comfortable navigating. Anyway that’s my take from the project, the rest of us are going to comment on it here as well. In the meantime you can also check out the transcript from our tour, our project archive and a video below, documenting our walk-thru.
[Ed. note: The user-generated virtual world Metaplace closed down on January 1, 2010 at 11:59pm EST. While Metaplace was still open, it was possible to visit the Social Media and Gaming world at http://metaplace.com/SMediaGamess_World/play. The Social Media and Gaming world is no longer accessible in Metaplace but the video below documents the final project walk-thru. You won't hear any voice chat as we used text chat, but you can forward thru and see the different rooms representing the research aspects. Some objects inside the world, i.e., bookshelves, file cabinets, etc. - are web links, while others, i.e., the TV, video screens - are video overviews of each topic.]
I have to say that I did not by any means post on twitter everyday since we were asked to. When I first signed up for twitter (before this class began) I liked checking it every day and seeing what people were writing on their status and it inspired me to post close to every day. Twitter quickly lost it’s appeal to me. I think many things attributed to this.
The first was that my iPod Touch broke (and is once again being worked on by Apple.) I do not have a more advanced phone like a blackberry or iPhone that I can have an app for Twitter right on. When I was using my iPod Touch everyday at work, I would at times, check Twitter and see whom was “tweeting” or what have you. But one of the deterants was a lack of a non-constant/instant connection.
I grew bored of celebrities posts. I don’t need to know that so-n-so lost their hair brush or is on a flight to Europe or what have you. Yes, I found it all in good fun at first, but I did end up feeling like a stalker. A lot of my friends do not have time to post on there and so I was essentially peering into the lives of people I don’t know but may want to (celebrities.)
Facebook wins in my book. If the assignment was to have an experience on facebook every day, I could do that. I could find someone to message, or a new game to participate in, or a new application…I could send someone a gift or a piece of flair or add some photos. I am more interested in what people I already know are doing or if they are going out to the bars tonight or their pictures from the vacation they took. I can share the experience with them and generate a live, personal conversation with them about the experience when I see them next. I can write on their wall and comment on what they are up to or invite them to hang out. This personal interaction and connection with people are why I use social networks. Twitter gets takes a snippet of the experience (the status box) and cuts out everything else. In the back of my mind, the motivation that it was an assignment should have driven me to visit Twitter every day, but I grew so bored with the application that I completely blocked the whole thing out. I may even cancel my twitter account because of the inaccessibility that I have currently with it.
On a side note, does anyone still use AIM? My husband uses it occassionally, and I was using his computer the other day, and noticed that it has “lifestream.” I looked into it more, and it seems that you can link your twitter and facebook to your aim, so people can just one place and see all your status and chat and stalk you wherever you are (hahaha.)
Second Life Event: The Pencil Factory by Angry Beth Shortbread
Originally The Pencil Factory was the last part of the Orientation with my class members and Teaching Assistant, Shushanik. Since we were wrapping up the Orientation, I did not get to focus on the offerings of The Pencil Factory. However, I decided to go back as I became more comfortable with navigating various ports in Second Life, and what I discovered was an animated world that was truly amazing and for the most part interactive.
First what I discovered was the interactive element of The Pencil Factory. In the Synthy-Go Round installation, I was able to edit the sounds of the environment to my liking. What I found myself doing was tapping on a variety of cubes to create the sounds that I wanted to hear. To start from a fresh plate, I turned all the sounds off. Though no sounds were on, I heard the sounds of what I believed to be tidal waves. I kept walking around the cubes to see where the sounds were coming from, but I never found out.
To partake in the world created by Angry Beth, the owner of the space, I tapped the Chords cube, then I turned the Synth cube on, then I turned the Crowds on, which really pumped up the space. To take the element up a notch, I tapped the Woofers cube. With those 4 cubes, the space still felt rather empty. It was so weird, how the emptiness of the space and sound made me feel so alone in The Pencil Factory. What turned it into a party was when I added the Drums. The addition of the Drums alone brought the space to life, along with the Swell cube. I was satisfied by just adding the sounds listed above. I felt if I added too many of the sound effects it would throw off the zone that I was in.
As I walked through the room I approached a sign which I zoomed in on. The sign asked if I wanted a unique DNA chain rendering of my Avatar. That was interesting to see the outlay of myself.
The best part of my visit was the Synthy-Cube exhibit. I had to walk into a green cube, and I every step I took, a beat played to the steps that I took, and the cubes followed in a trail. It was so interesting to see how music and space collided.
Here is my and Stef’s corpse project. It has been done for a while, but I was having a hell of a time trying to squeeze it down so it was small enough to upload onto here. Hope you like it
Just an update as I just realized that our group (which includes Me, Venessa, Stephanie, Jon & Kay) has been doing all of our collaboration on our wiki and not posting here.
We are in the midst of creating something that I think will be really cool if it comes out the way we envision it. Spoiler Alert: If you want to be surprised by the final product, don’t follow this link.
Recently I watched a live garage band concert on livestream. It was very impressive. I love going to local venues and supporting local music. When we were given this assignment to go to a live, networked event, this was the first place my mind went. It was real neat because of the live chat feature. It really creates a network of fans that are able to interact with one another. Anyone who has been to a lot of shows knows that it is not always easy to connect with other complete strangers. What is great about this format, is that one can chat while watching the show to complete strangers who are there for the same reason. In general, the music was your general alt-rock genre. The musicians are not saving the world or anything, just expressing their views and experiences. It is still great to be able to enjoy the music with others who are there because of similar interests. While it usually important to support the “local” music scene, one thing I have taken from this course, is that the very idea of “local” is changing. While in the music realm it used to refer to independent, locally produced and consumed tunes, the internet is changing this. Now, the ideology behind local, is available to the world. Bands in a garage in Austin, or a warehouse in Australia can record and put out tracks for people the world over, without being touched by large record executives. The global has truly become the new local. It is now possible to connect with people all over the world. In this particular arena, it is even greater. Music has been called the universal language, and it may be a cliché, but it does certainly bring people together who may not meet or talk otherwise. All in all, the networked event was a great experience. I am familiar with the blogosphere and social networking sites, but being able to actually watch and experience something, while incorporating the aspects of chat and networking really is something that has a great amount of promise for collaboration in the future.
I really needed to comment on the event that transpired on Monday with the interview we had with Rik. I, unfortunately, did not see the seesmic post before hand, but I am actually glad that I didn’t. I went to his website and read a little about him, but I think it helped with the emotion and my reaction to what his work is about. For those of you who were not able to make it, Rik works with the Global Kids Network. They are based in NYC and really give a voice and teach skills to at risk teens/kids. They help them find a project they are passionate about and develop a means to educate or discuss the topic with others. I highly suggest that people look into this program. I think that although people normally think of at risk teens/kids as being in bigger cities, I think that it is as much of a problem in smaller towns/states. I live in the second largest “city” in Vermont, although there are just about the same number of residents in Rutland as attended the university I attended, thats not the point. The point is, there is nothing, NOTHING to do in my town. I remember trying to come up with things to do with my friends in high school and we literally spent HOURS sitting on my friends porch just talking to trying to figure out what we were going to do. Our movie theater just went bankrupt (they needed to be booted out of town anyway) so that was really the last hope for kids in our town. I really could see, if having the support of the community, how such a program would do well in my small town. It was really moving to speak with Rik and I really wished we could have spent longer speaking with him.
Rik showed us an event they created with the Holocaust Museum of DC. It was truely moving and I highly suggest everyone venture our there. I have the landmark and would be happy to share it with you. It was the second best thing to time travel there is to experience what the people in that town experienced when the Nazis raided. There are survivor stories that play when you walk into rooms, they have recreations of the real graffiti from the buildings and the burning of the church…I mean it was crazy. I am going to go back and spend some more time there. Truely moving.
When I looked at the description of the event, I believed that there was going to be a host there to converse with. I am glad I went with a buddy (mr bearsfoot lol) to enjoy the experience with. It was actually really educational and got me inspired about the way to set up some of my portion of our final project. I have to say that it unforunately wasn’t a “networked” event, although on the list, because there weren’t any other people there. It must have taken a long time to set up. Everything was very interactive and informational. They were trying to link a lot of the start trek world to the real world. There was a slideshow with a physicist who was talking about the reality of star trek and the things that are fathomable and those that are not. Such as, we can not travel warp speed and it is semi-albert einsteins fault. (well, he proved that we can not). Anyway, I think had their been people there, I would have felt a bit awkward talking with them. I have a limited knowledge of Star Trek (my rents were big trekies and my siblings) and I was thinking that it would still be kind of cool. After I went to the museum of science, I walked around a bit in the musuem of culture that you could take the teleporter to get to. There were some people there and I attempted to talk to them. But after walking up to a few people and trying to start a convo and having them COMPLETELY ignore me and walk far, far, away, I left the world. I thought the point of this program was to meet and interact with new people. I was very disappointed in the fact that no one would talk to me. I even had on a star trek uniform! I mean, come on!
I have to say that I am completely impressed with all the work that goes into making one of these worlds. All the interactive pieces and landmarks and cards; it really is crazy.
