Jazz Club

I found the jazz club rather boring, people were very upset that I wasn't dancing and in formal wear, and that was the only interaction I got out of them. I eventually got some dance things going on, and was very unimpressed by the recordings. I know it is a challenge to do a live performance with multiple people, especially in a virtual world, but I was hoping for maybe a soloist playing over a jam track or piece, so at least one of the instruments was live. I could see something like this being a networking event, maybe practice for the feel of online interactions and discuss music, maybe practice some conversational english/language, and mask that you are not a native speaker, and just try to keep the face straight as long as possible, or even fool people into not even noticing that you are not a native speaker of the language you are speaking, which would build an enormous amount of confidence, I believe. Sadly, this event was a bunch of stiffs, but gladly so, because it made me think outside the box a little bit, it forced me to come up with ways it could be educational because.....well, there was nothing else to do except watch my avatar dance

THE STAR TREK MUSEUM IS THE BEST THING EVER

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/New%20Eridani/118/120/1442

Star Trek museum was awesome. Did not expect the depth. I started off in a tour group but ultimately, I was too interested in the "star trek and real science" section, and ventured out of the tour group. I thought it was a good approach- take "lite" science, the cool stuff that makes you interested, doesn't contain technical stuff and appears to be fit for a 5th grade classroom, and use it in conjunction with Star Trek, something people can relate to, to increase willingness to learn (and perhaps not know they are learning!) It's something I'm very interested in because my focus recently has been corporate/professional development curriculum, and desire to learn something and perceived learning are a much different take on education, where the motivations are a whole other world from the classroom. Here are pics, I highly suggest going there!

Love Discussion

I attended a discussion on "What is that thing called Love?" at http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Blue%20Moon/103/233/23. It is a fair sized group, I have been to a couple of poetry readings, misc events, and the turnout was me, that;s it, just me. It is exciting to see a group at all, but this one actually has 20+ people. The lecturer showed some videos of thing that had to do with love, like the jubilee project and some movie trailers. What this ended up being was more a philosophy lecture and discussion, or maybe that was intended from the start, but it wasn't clear to me. I think that this type of forum, sitting in a secondlife "lecture hall," has more value for education than the content he was talking about. A professor can give a lecture remotely to students not in the same place as each other. I had an odd nostalgic feeling attending this, like I was in a classroom again, something I haven't done in about two years.

Below is the quote that got me started thinking of it as a philosophy lecture.


"Diotima  taught in Plato's Symposium  that love is a ladder . . . the ladder of learning. And while our souls climb that ladder they will learn the secret of eternal beauty.
 A universal  beauty that is deep beneath all layers of appearance."

Also, the speaker mentioned universal love, as well as romantic love, and focused on that for a little bit.

Paris art exhibit/talk

A woman who is a painter had a talk/art exhibit today, and it also happened to be in Paris 1900. She gave us a tour of her gallery, and spoke abut what inspires her to paint, the amount of time she has been painting, projects she is working on, as well as showing off some things she made for second life, like the dress she was wearing, and gave a little deeper meaning to each painting, that was "hung" in the gallery.This is a good idea for exposure to fine arts and would be a good educational experience for an art class. In fact, it said something about Hunter College in the description, but I couldn't figure out exactly how it was affiliated. Anyway, it was a great experience, there were a lot of nice paintings, and I got something out of it I wouldn't have if I only saw the paintings. She also gave a lengthy part of the discussion to the history (Caribbean islands) that is the focus of her paintings.

Concert!

I went to http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Vahalla%20Island/235/59/15, a music venue. I saw an event in progress and an artist on afterwards, so I figured I would go hang out there, and focus on the second event because that would be the one I stayed the whole hour for. Well, we make plans and God laughs…… I got the bulk of the interesting “wow” moments in the first twenty minutes, the tail end of cletis carr. (http://www.cletis.com/) I loved the music, but I was EXTREMELY upset that it was recorded and just played back, I felt like it was cheap and a bad idea…...I heard applause in the background, very clearly a recording. I voiced how I thought it was lame, or something to that effect. AT THE END OF THE SONG, HE SAID “PETAGNA, THIS ISN’T A RECORDING BY THE WAY, I’M GLAD YOU LIKE THE QUALITY.” I did like the quality. I was very stunned, as well as embarrassed. I later learned that the applause that nailed the idea down for me that it was a recording, and perhaps not even his song, was a stock sound either played by the venue or someone in the audience. I got a couple more shoutouts, mostly for having an odd avatar and shamelessly being the closest to the stage I can get away with. I was surprised at the friendliness and closeness you are able to get- the “intimacy” with the artist that is possible. This is a live performance, I feel just as good, if not better than going to a bar to see a band.

What I really want to know is if anyone is making music remotely on secondlife, and that is what I’ll hunt down next. I want to know if two avatars can get up there, not be in the same room, and just hear eachother and make music with good enough accuracy. Maybe even jamming or collaborative songwriting, or instruction for an instrument, maybe even online music program where performance requirements are done in secondlife. Anyway, that is for another time that is not 2 AM and when I don’t forget to get coffe on the way home from work. BTW here is his site: http://www.cletis.com/

Andrew and George's Secondlife Stop 3

It feels awesome to be immersed- we can have such a huge disconnect between what we read in a history book and the real world. This is a really good bridge for that. The tram ride is very immersive, there’s some cool facts, and it just feels like If I was reading about the arc de triumph, seeing it here would give it a little more meaning. This could even be used as a virtual field trip for a history class and be useful. In this case, the "virtual field trip" is to somewhere that it would be cost/ time prohibitive to go to, but also adds another dimension to it by adding time to the mix. I could see myself going on a tour of a few more countries (:

George and Andrew's secondlife stop 2

Even though its under construction, it seems like its just an information center shape like a cylinder. Still, I thought it was very informative and awesome, even though I didn’t really learn anything because I’m obsessed with LHC and have probably read more about it than is healthy.

Oh wait! an elevator! There is a lot going on up here, still a lot under construction, but good visuals, low level science stuff that is interesting I think is really good because it increases student willingness to learn by having these interactive visuals. As I think more and more about education in SL, What keeps coming up, and seems pretty universal, is the ability to take a "virtual field trip" which is actually very meaningful.

George and Andrew's secondlife stop 1

virtual hallucinations-

This is a huge educational experience- you can learn how people with these issues actually feel, you can actually sympathize with them on a deeper level. I think that it does a world of wonders for those in the psychology field, we can understand someone with a bruise, a cut, and treat them, understand, Those with mental illness, however, can be written off as crazy, and we can’t relate to them. The viewer or doctor might be detached even if they are open minded. This can help that a lot, bridging the gap a little bit can make the difference in patient treatment. Me and buzzy couldn’t figure out how to get the voices to stop though, as this was our first stop.

Visiting the superhero world in SL

I found an abandoned town in SL....but it really was home to a superhero base! I thought it was really cool. My first impression was that the town looked like a level from the "Left 4 Dead" series. I then poked around and found a secret cave! Inside were a bunch of superhero costumes disguised as a comic book shop, and a meeting room complete with pictures of the heroes and such. Here are some pics!