Ofelia Pevensey

Here are my thoughts on her talk. As always, I will start out with the meta analysis, because, well I like meta-analysis and I think more people should pay attention to it.

The Forum

I was talking with Amy (seminar leader) about the first Second Life talk and it seems we have potential. In her classroom there were people talking to each other in Real Life as well as in Second Life. There are lots of private messages being flung around during the event which is good in my opinion. How many times have we had ideas we wanted to discuss in class or lecture but we weren't able to because we couldn't disturb the lecturer? Now we can and it is awesome!

Interruptions

I think with this Second Life lecturing, we need to place more importance on the chat window and less on the slowly loading , low resolution visuals. Or perhaps we can have a second screen with a large chat box to facillitate real time discussion without flooding the small chat box during lecture. There is a lot of potential for good discussion along with the presentation and it would only add to the presentation. A live stream of conscious where people can talk out and speak their mind via text or voice would be freeing. No more @'s to ask a question! We just end up mirroring the limitations of real life and that sucks!

Speed

The flow of the lecture in the SL was quite slow. There was nothing positive I could think of aside from the idea that it was giving the presenter a voice to present with that she might not normally have.

Aside from that, it was like reading a news paper. Huge chunks of text thrown up to the screen (much like a dry power point, was this any different), combined with our need to be silent in both real life and second life left a bitter taste in my mouth.

I think what GIMP is doing is credible, however the idea that it is done in SecondLife seems somewhat arbitrary. There are message boards and chat rooms and the like, and to have to go through the process of loading and lag and waiting for people to log in and find you and then have the environment rez seems like a large hassle.

There are so many other better ways to do this, however I suppose being able to represent yourself via avatar is important to them. I do have a final gripe, and that is the inability for men to join the group. The group predicates itself on being accepting or everyone, but then explicitly states no men. I suppose it could be awkward for men to sit through a conversation on menstruation, but that could be easily avoided if that came up. Seems discriminatory and ancient to have a "girls" or "boys" club of any type.