Modeling reality with virtual worlds

What are different ways these virtual worlds can be used? What are the pros and cons? Be specific. How do virtual worlds foster creativity? What do you think the future of virtual worlds will look like?

Nowadays virtual world are becoming more a reality than real life itself. As mentioned y  Stephanie Simon in "Avatar II: the Hospital", "second life is increasingly being used to train medical and nursing students in clinical skills". Second life help make real-world hospitals more efficient since nurses or doctors or students can practice situation that happen in the real world.

            Virtual world also help stimulate people's imagination and help train people in obtaining certain skills necessary to their work. Virtual world help people reconnect with the past and relive what they thought was lost to them. An example is Saki Knafo's, The New York Times article "In Room 100, It’s Sid and Nancy All Over Again" where this Chelsea hotel, the tenants who could no longer afford and were ousted had the opportunity to recreate a world that was dear to them with its culture and everything they loved about the place.

            In virtual world, you can be who you want to be, how you want to be, whenever you desire. There is nobody to judge you, mock you, put you in uncomfortable situations or bully you. I do not go to the virtual worlds and do not have an avatar, but I think that should that happen, your avatar can take care of it. I would not understand if someone could let themselves be bullied without taking care of it in a virtual world. To me virtual worlds should represent the safest place one could live in. Virtual world help foster social skills especially for people who lack social, emotional and communication skills  to help them feel more comfortable in a different environment. Hopefully, this could help them connect better with real humans.

            On a professional point of view, business can have virtual meeting in the safe environment of the company's own computer networks . It is a new tool that more and more companies are using to hold meetings, conduct training and prototype new technologies more efficiently.

            But there are also some cons. Companies can run into some hitches. For people who are not familiar with the virtual world, it might take time to adapt and know their way around. That issue might not be a big one if one is in the virtual world to practice social skills, but for an organization that is a completely different story as lost time represents lost income and revenues.

      Another issue reside in the fact that consistently living in the virtual world can lead to feelings of isolation. People do lose sight of the reality and act in the real world as if it was just the virtual world. This can create big problems for mentally deranged people who can pose acts that represent threats to society.

            Also, as mentioned by Mark Tutton in going to the virtual office in second life, " virtual teams may not share national and organizational cultures, and that virtual workers should make a conscious effort to see things from their colleagues' point of view". So, this negative aspect can easily be changed  into a positive thing as we're going to a more international culture.

 Sources

·    "In Room 100, It's Sid and Nancy All Over Again,"by Saki Knafo, The New York Times, May 3, 2009, p. CY6. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/03/nyregion/thecity/03virt.html

·    iReport: 'Naughty Auties' battle autism with virtual interaction by Nicole Saidi, CNN, March 28, 2008.

·         http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/conditions/03/28/sl.autism.irpt/index.html#cnnSTCText

·         IBM's Virtual World for its Employees: IBM Learning Programs Get a 'Second Life' by Ed Frauenheim Workforce Management; Dec 11, 2006; http://www.workforce.com/section/00/article/24/61/08.html

·         Going to the Virtual Office in Second Life, CNN.com: Nov 5, 2009 http://www.cnn.com/2009/BUSINESS/11/05/second.life.virtual.collaboration/index.html

·         "Avatar II: The Hospital" by Stephanie Simon, The Wall Street Journal, April 13, 2010 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703909804575124470868041204.html?KEYWORDS=avatar+ii+the+hospital

Blog about Twitter

How does a Twitter discussion compare to a BlackBoard Discussion? To an in-class discussion?

I really don’t think Twitter compares in any way to BlackBoard. Let’s start with length. With Twitter, you are limited to 140 characters which does not live many space to expressing yourself. You have to be very imaginative to make each character count or nobody will know what you’re talking about. Tweeter is about expressing your opinion, your state of mind and put your two cents in someone else’s opinion/tweet.

Blackboard on the other side is all about academics. You have to follow guidelines and decorum, respect the opinions of your professors and fellow students and courteously disagree with them which is definitely not a requirement in Tweeter world. And you can go on and on in a Blackboard discussion or post a picture or attach a document which is not possible with the 140 characters of Tweeter.

Finally there is the in class discussion which can or cannot be more structure and you can actually see and interpret non verbal behaviors which to me is the most interesting part. I mean if someone is good with words, you can get hints and cues from them, but the real deal is to actually see the behavior. But the not so interesting part of an in-class discussion is that you can’t escape it or you will be penalized. While when I am bored with the online class or don’t feel like being there I can live it and come back whenever and getting dressed up is not a requirement.

Social Networking Sites

Social Networking Sites: can’t live without them! Can’t live with them! Good thing I didn’t have to register to myspace.com to know what it was all about (basically media and art) or I would scream my frustration to yet again have to remember another password.

Now, let’s talk. What’s your favorite social network? Raise your hand if you dare! I bet you can’t since each has their own use and you kind of need many if not all of them. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if somehow we could blend them all together and have one perfect social network with different parts to be accessed depending on what  you needed it for?  I am sure this will happen one day. Maybe sooner than we think and MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Tumbler and who knows what else will just be ancient history like the dinosaurs.

But for now, let’s just spread out our lives (our social lives that is) with its ups and downs, interesting or boring stories, pictures, and our states of mind to the hundreds or thousands so called friends that we have in our Facebook account. Personally, I go to Facebook when I need a laugh, need to know what’s going on in my friends lives (please stop boring me with the annoying stories and I really don’t need to know the intimate  details you know you should not be posting anyway, you know who you are) or get the pulse of the world event.

Until last week when were introduced to Twitter via the many articles posted on Blackboard, courtesy of Profesor Weisel, I really did not care for Twitter and thought it was mostly used by celebrities who needed to reassure the world about their existence and whereabouts. That’s why when some of my friends had asked me to follow them on Twitter via Facebook, I found it hilarious and so ridiculous. Aren’t we getting to know everything about your social life through Facebook anyway? Why, oh why do I need to follow you on Twitter? I already get any and all insignificant updates of your life from Facebook. So, I was very surprised to know that one could Tweet their way to a job, companies used it to better customer service and the possibilities where endless. Who knew?

But let’s not forget LinkedIn, one of the most important Social Networks since you can actually grow with it, post all your academics and professional accomplishments which can land you a job even without searching for it. I learned the other day that companies looked through this free networking system that is LinkedIn to find the best employee based on the compatibility of the company to the person’s account.  Interesting, right? To me it means that someone can save me from a boring job by proposing me a new environment based on my aptitudes. Maybe I could enjoy it for a long time, maybe I could make a career about something I care about, right?

Social Networking

Social Networking, something that was unknown twenty years ago, plays now a major part in our everyday lives. Whether we want it or not, whether we like it or not, use it or not, it has become essential to us. Nowadays, we are becoming more and more dependent of social networking and it would not make sense to ignore social networking unless one lived under a rock, and even that is debatable. Everybody has at least a Facebook account and many use Tweeter even though I believe one has to be in the public eye for it to make sense. LinkedIn is the most important aspect of today’s professional and its benefits grow as one is getting older and getting more professional relations as pointed out by Frannk Langfit in “Social Networking Technology Boosts Job Recruiting”. LinkedIn is the best way to advertise oneself on a professional point of view and one great way to find a job without even searching for it if the account is well organized and key words used. And, let’s not forget about MySpace, one of the best environments where one can open up artistically.

Nicole Ellison in the Stephen J Dubner article “Is MySpace Good for Society? A Freakonomics Quorum” reports that Social Networking has “made us better off as a society and as individuals”, and points out that some of the more interesting evidences of the benefits of social networking such as political activities, social activities or job found through LinkedIn or Career Builder. We all know the huge success encountered by elect president Barack Obama using social media and how he was able to reach out to many groups and raise huge amount of money while the Republican Party who did not care so much in the power of social media missed out on the elections. And who can’t forget the revolution in Egypt practically organized through Facebook some time ago. People do get organized and know what’s going on via social networking.

But, as much as we’re reaping the benefits of social networking, we can’t forget the negative parts that make it not so attractive to many. Youths can bully (or be bullied) as easily inside the classroom or the neighborhood than on the virtual world.  These harassments lead to loss of lives weather it is through the organized suicide groups or the kid bullied who kills himself, or the craigslist monster who lies and silently kills or more recently the people whose lives through virtual worlds has gotten mixed up with the real world.

Sources

Is MySpace Good for Society? A Freakonomics Quorum by Stephen J. Dubner. NYT Feb 15, 2008 http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/15/is-myspace-good-for-society-a-freakonomics-quorum/

Social Networking Technology Boosts Job Recruiting by Frank Langfitt, NPR, March 16, 2008. available from http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6522523&sc=emaf