course requriement for next semester

gotta put $10 into the game - not having money slowed people up - couldn't play with their avie as much, couldn't buy cool things

$10 would get them a couple thousand linden bucks and expose them to more aspects of hte game - buying things which hopefully will lead them to think about how people make money in the game and why

I wonder if i need to require them to buy things? need to think about that some more

class so far

They don't seem to be having as much fun as last semester. I'm having fun (see my other blog) but they don't seem as willing to experiment. There have been problems getting into the lab but overall - just not as playful. They did good observations for hteir first papers but.

I learned how to make a "machine" to give out notecards. I think i'll make use of that next semester - give out notecards with the locations to visit and little assignments. One group online talked about a treasure hunt; that might be a good exercise.

I think i'm going to go back to the group blog too - that may have spurred them on seeing what other people are doing. ANd i have got to remember to have them blog at hte end of class.

This semester I think we will focus on 2 main questions
- how do you define basic terms - game, fun, learning
- how do you learn to play something like secondlife 

i like the ideas of constructivist learning - have to create the shared reality, reflective writing - with a world like secondlife who do you share your reality with? how do you knwo if your understanding is the same as someone elses?

SO i need some measures for before, during and after the semester. 
-I'm thinking that weekly or more frequent blog posts for their descriptions of what they did and what it taught/showed them

-a survey with a list of the activities we did during the semester and their assessment of how much and what they learned from each (to get them to sort of rate the assignments rather than evaluate them one at a time - that will be in the blog)

- i need a pretest - what do you know about secondlife now, have you ever hung out in a mmorpg - can't be anonymous so can't ask too much - need to be able to combine it with their blog posts and endof hte semester essay

- end of the semester essay - what do they think they learned about learning, about how they learn best

Crazy

Second life is becoming a real thing. http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/internet/04/28/gamein.game/index.html

Check this out

I think this will have an effect on second LIfe and its members http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/04/24/web.surf.ap/index.html/

Interviews, Observation, or Content Analysis?

All of the methods that we have used have their merits and their ups and downs, if you will. Interviewing clearly gets the most specific response with plenty of room for questions. Observation gives you the opportunity to see people in their natural habitat. Content analysis, gives the opportunity for deep study and many different views. However, when it comes to which one I prefer to do, then it’s a easy choice.

Although interviews may get the best responses and give you the most flexibility, they also have several down points. The first being that you actually have to find some one who will let you interview them, and in Second Life especially I have found this to be very difficult. On top of this interviews can often be awkward and time consuming, neither of which I particularly enjoy.

Observations aren’t as awkward as interviews, but they too have some problems. Unlike with some other forms observation can be seriously effected by the time when you conduct your observation. At different times areas will be more or less populated and by different groups, to effectively observe you have to go at the right time. Also observation is entirely based on your own observations, thus if you miss something, then it is gone forever.

Then there is content analysis. Although this method is by no means perfect (it involves a lot of reading, and looking for content) it is the least awkward and most convenient of the methods. Your sources will neither ignore you, nor will they restrict you to a specific time. Thus, for me, I find content analysis to be the most comfortable method. Naturally this is only my opinion, others may differ.

data collection technique

i personally feel most comfortable with observing.

interviewing is ok, but sometimes while talking to people i don't know, i can tend to get uncomfortable and nervous. and if the person you're interviewing knows you're nervous, it could affect the way they react to you.

observing is out of the way... and i personally like reading people's body language. so it's really easy for me.

Which data collection technique do you feel most comfortable with - interviews, observations, or content analysis? Why?

I'd have to say that I feel most comfortable observing. This is not to say that I get all clamy and nervous before I conduct an interview or that I hate reading blogs and posts. Quite simply, I would liken recording my observations to writing a journal entry. I enjoy being attentive to all the action, dialogue, and occurences that happen around me. With observations, I get to interpret how the "world" appears to me. Any thought that comes to mind could be important and so I just write as if I were capturing my stream of consciousness.

With observations, there is very little for me to concern myself with. I just have to write down everything that I see, hear, feel, and think. When interviewing, I have to pay attention to the other person (sometimes offering feedback or words of encouragement). With content analysis, I have to consider the parameters of my study (perhaps my focus is too specific, or maybe it's too general).

Sidenote: I think that I might prefer to interview people in person. As classmates of mine have mentioned, sometimes the other person takes forever to respond (or they could just stop answering my questions without any explanation). We discussed the benefits to interviewing on SL (no real-time travel required, no need to be self-conscience, if the other person is weird you can just teleport, etc...), but I would probably feel more comfortable (maybe even less self-conscience) interviewing in person.

Mikedgo Fluffy on a vacation

Mikedgo Fluffy is on an all expense paid vaction thanks to Linden labs he will be there for a week till May 3rd, 2006. However, Mikedgo Hicks is in the house making friends and completing 5 interviews tonight and making 5 friends so go Mikedgo Hicks.

Interested in music in SL? Turns out there's a record label in the game - and Eric Rice owns it. Remember him - he wrote the article about understanding hte game. Turns out he's a designer and is helping groups get online (groups including microsoft)

here's a post from his blog about the music - http://blog.ericrice.com/blog/_archives/2006/4/20/1899927.html

and here's a link to a blog post about the microsoft island, including a SLURL to it - 
http://www.secretlair.com/index.php?/clickableculture/microsoft_quietly_creeps_into_second_life/

check it out - Business Week has a cover story on SecondLife and its economy - http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_18/b3982001.htm?chan=tc?campaign_id=rss_tech