Sunday, 4th March, 2007

Prepwn

photo

When I get my island, the first thing I'm going to do is organise a bloody big shoot-up. Then a party. With pie

Ex-Blist

Must just very quickly say thanks to Becky Storm, whose recommendation of Blisteeze Blistex has worked a treat. The gaping gash in my lower lip has completely healed.

I now feel snoggable again

(I didn't think it tasted that bad, to be honest )

You'd have to get in a queue behind me — which would be odd, in a paradoxical kinda way.

...

Actually, speaking of lips and fixing/healing and whatnot, it's been an ongoing annoyance for me — for probably about a year now — that Kisa's lips have never been quite right. The upper lips has always been weirdly out of shape — which was OK with my normal skin (to an extent) but whenever I try on new skins, I look like a freak

But this morning (when I should have been working really) I roped in the delectable Dakota Buck and Haver Cole who both tweaked at my mouth (fnaar) and sorted them out for me

Happy now

/me just realised how much that made me sound like Buffalo Bill

Monday Teacher Buzz

SL/Web Integration & Kisa's Gadgets — (NMC Campus Observer)

Rather remiss of me not to crow about blog this myself really It'll be at my gallery in Steiger at 5pm (UK time), and I'm planning on talking a little about some of the stuff I've made in SL, but mainly trying to tie them into my overall experiences of the metaverse — in particular, how I don't really see it as a place to teach at students, more of a place to learn with students.

I do think I should mention though, that the Flickr Set Browser Thingy that Alan rather nicely mentions, was hacked by me on top of the stuff that AngryBeth and I had worked together on previously — so I can't really take credit for the whole of it.

I do, I must confess, find some of the overall chatter about Second Life and education a bit tiresome sometimes. The over-effervescent enthusiasm is sometimes nauseous, and I really do wonder whether or not a lot of the Exciting! Groundbreaking! Things! I read about in blogs and mailings lists amount to much more than a text-based disemination of ready-made gumpf that could have been shoved on a web page, rather than a truly innovative exploration of theoretical spaces.

It strikes me that one of the greatest mistakes that a lot of the "I've signed up, now how do I teach?" brigade make, is to assume that the normal 'power structures' that exist in Real Life are easily transferable into the Virtual.

Not that I think there's necessarily anything special about Second Life, it's just that everyone is presented with the same steep learning curve — and the difficulties of retaining 'authority' are immediately apparent when you're bumbling around in a white t-shirt and ludicrously turned-up jeans looking the same as those you're trying to maintain a sense of 'dignity' in front of.

There's something refreshingly levelling about it though, I find. The few students that I have talked to inworld, have always (perhaps through politeness) engaged with me as Kisa, rather than with the 'Graham' that they know.

I feel, somehow, that it would be wrong of me to talk to them about it on the same level that I might do with some of my other work — mainly because I just don't know enough about it all. But also, it would be wrong of me to talk to them with any sense of 'authority on the subject "Because I am Graham, your tutor", but rather because "I'm Kisa, and I've done some cool things in here".

I dunno — sorry I need to think this through some more.

...

Oh yeah — (potentially) amusing (related) story I forgot to mention the other day...

I was sat at the back of the seminar that I went to — "Beyond Wikis and Blogs" — and the guy from JISC mentioned the NMC

"Excuse me" piped-up a voice as the woman in front of me raised her hand, "but I noticed that $_SESSION['Siobhans_Uni']¹ was listed on that"

"Ah. That'd be my fault" I confessed, rather sheepishly, although I'm not sure why.

¹ Hmm. You may have noticed that I've gone back on my earlier bravado, and taken out the reference to which specific Uni out of the two in Leeds, I teach at. Indeed, I'm quoted in the NMC blog as being "a teacher in Contemporary Art and Graphic Design at a University in Leeds", because I think Alan just copy-pasted that from here. It wasn't because I was afraid people might work out who I was or anything — I mean, I give my full real name in the sentence before. It's just that around about the time I did that BBC thing, and the Sunday Times were trying to get some words out of me about Education and Second Life, an email went around from the Press Office insisting that all web/press stuff should go through them first, and I thought I didn't really want to incur their wrath. I don't mind people knowing which one it is, I just decided I shouldn't say it out loud — or at least, in a Googleable way (even though that page isn't Googlebotted). For the record, it's not Leeds Uni. It's the other one. But then, you probably already knew that. Hell, you've probably all got my home address or something. In fact, I think I can see a face at the window...

Cheers for that Yeah, it's for a younger year-group, but what's interesting about it (in the small section I read through) is that it kinda demonstrates the usual SL-type debate, which I find rather tedious:

1. "I've just found this new thing!"

2. "Oh that — that's rubbish and pointless"

3. "No! It's the future"

...followed by a general repetition of 2 & 3