Virtual Presence
I have never contemplated the meaning of “presence” except in its literal sense, meaning that if you are at x location at the current moment, that is presence. Or if you compare something from your past to something now, that establishes the present. So literal and one dimensional! In terms of virtual presence, critical thought can come into play. Establishing a presence through virtual environments takes a little more time to construct than being at x location at the current moment. Thinking about this type of presence makes me realize that it goes deeper than the way most people think of it, if they think about it at all.
While I am still getting used to Twitter and Seesmic, I have the strongest virtual presence on Facebook. Since I’ve had that account for years now, I have accumulated many friends, photos, messages, applications, etc, that have made me an active member and very present to others who can seek me out on Facebook and access a lot of information about who I am. So presence in the virtual world, in my belief, takes longer to achieve than simply walking into a room and bam! your presence in known and established immediately. With the immediacy of physical presence, however, come the extensive limitations with it. We can’t walk into a room with 537 photos and messages from others, or with our 700 friends on Facebook. It is only us. Therefore, virtual environments provide a much stronger platform for extending our presence to many people through one direction, and quickly at that. This is how I have come to analyze my presence when comparing physical to virtual.
Engaging one another at a virtual level depends on the motivation behind it. Of course we are all logged into the class blog and wiki, and the other platforms that enable strong communication with one another, but we are also required to do this. This requirement ends up being very beneficial to us, however, because we are able to communicate in a number of ways. We can talk and record ourselves, we can write/type out ideas and comments to one another, and we can send simple status updates through twitter if we just want to be quick. Comparing that with an online class environment like Blackboard, we have the flexibility of reaching each other in different ways. It definitely cuts out boredom with clicking on the same link every day that takes you to the exact same location, where you use the exact same method to communicate with the class each time.
This week’s readings were great, somewhat challenging to get through, but did offer up some interesting information in terms of analyzing the concept of presence, collaboration and play. The collaboration piece was especially interesting. It was almost like reading about how to function as part of a team, but also about what methods of achieving success were effective, and what methods have proven to make collaboration projects particularly difficult and ineffective. I particularly liked the Groan Zone analysis, because I think this is true of fast-paced teamwork environments. One of the most important things to consider in teamwork is the barrier of individualism that can create roadblocks for the final product of a collaborative piece of work. This has always been an obstacle in past group projects I have worked on. Knowing how to healthily express one’s ideas and contributions is the best way to communicate and reach a means to an end. I think with a virtual space, individualism can’t get as overbearing as it could in physical space.
Last 5 posts by vgomez
- Group 1: Final Blog Entry (Global Textbook) - July 29th, 2009
- Project 1- Meeting notes - July 22nd, 2009
- LMS's - July 16th, 2009
- The Gaming World... who would have thought? - July 7th, 2009
- discussion of readings for week 4 - July 6th, 2009
June 29th, 2009 at 1:15 pm
I don’t know how many of you were glued to the internet on Thursday to finally get the confirmation that Michael Jackson was dead in LA but I found this as a prime example fo virtual presence. I received an email from a friend about the report and then my cnn alert came up that he had a cardiac arrest and rushed to the hospital and it felt like hours before cnn and the latimes finally did confirm that he was dead upon arrival. This was the firt time I really felt connected to what was going on. I am listening to the podcast from a local radio station http://evr.com/modules.php?name=evrshow&showid=6 that broke the news and played MJ records for the remainder of the show thanks to people heading down to the station and dropping off records and thoughts instantaneously after the declaration of death. MJ’s presence on all platforms was at an ultimate high – TMZ was first to report – http://www.tmz.com/2009/06/25/michael-jackson-dies-death-dead-cardiac-arrest/
And the celebs are text honoring him within minutes via twitter:
http://www.tmz.com/2009/06/25/michael-jackson-twitter/
RIP MJ – a legend even virtually
July 2nd, 2009 at 9:24 am
Internet presence is a very important issue because the technology of today requires individuals to exist not just in the physical world but also in the virtual cyberspace which is the internet. The internet has enabled us to access information more conveniently at any time we want. It has enabled us to learn, express our thoughts and emotions and communicate freely. There are many positive effects and aspects of the internet. It is definintely the fastist way to communicate and to share ideas therefore the internet is the modern “cool” medium for all media corporations, communities and individuals. It allows all people to meet on virtual environments which are more democratic environments for everybody to contribute to and it is also an opportunity for everyone who has a computer and an internet connection to present themselves and their ideas to the public and to broader societies around the world.