A tourist in Second Life

I know that as soon as you have an account in Second Life, you're a Resident, but as far as I'm concerned, The Residents are a bizarre conceptual rock band. So I'm still a tourist in SL, and will be until I change my avatar to look like an eyeball in formal attire.

The screen shot that illustrates this post is of my avatar, Isobel Jinx, posing in front of Vermeer's Girl with the Pearl Earring and wearing a free t-shirt she picked up at the genetic genealogy section of Info Island's genealogy presence. How like a tourist (though I have to say that none of the free t-shirts I've picked up in Real Life fit like that^). It was pretty ironic that one of the first buildings I would stumble into in SL would be the genealogy center (yes, I am heavily into genealogy but grad school cuts into my research time).

After reading the tweets of my classmates who got to SL before I did, I was worried about basic concerns like learning to walk and so forth, but the initial signup and avatar creation process went pretty well for me (though it was very odd to see people falling out of the sky at Help Island). I didn't have much trouble figuring out how to move around, and in short order had teleported to Info Island. I spent a lot of my time wandering around the December holidays exhibit and the Peace Park, devoted to various religions. It seemed like a tranquil place, plus it had singing birds, so there I was birding in SL (four species on my SL list so far, plus a couple more unidentified; none actually seen). I liked the Buddhist shrine and meditation space; it seemed so cool. It wasn't until I was driving home from RU and its high-speed connection that night that I realized the wonderfully exotic opportunity to meditate in SL was really a mundane mental discipline I've done in Real Life off and on over the years (mostly off, because meditation isn't exotic at all, really).

So far in SL, when I see another Resident, I run the other way. As a result, I haven't had any of the "Naked Life" experiences some of my classmates have had (whew). I guess it's possible to be shy in a virtual world, too. The look of the world reminds me a lot of the game Myst; otherworldly yet a little too tidy, at the same time. The SL version of Old Queens campus WAS pretty neat though.

I discovered that you can do SL on dial-up (yes, it's wrong, but still possible). I'm very intrigued by the various organizations that have staked out a presence there, plus the option of having an avatar that can try out things you might not want to (yet) in Real Life. Sort of a test universe, as it were. I will probably keep playing around with it in the future. On the other hand, as someone who often prefers dealing with information rather than people, I hope that this is not going to be the new model of surfing the web. I would rather just find the data I want, rather than having to go through some avatar to do the same thing. But perhaps others would feel differently.

Feedback for Steve

I have to say that I've really enjoyed this class. I came in with lots of experience on some social software (blogging, Flickr) and none on others (pod- and vodcasting). There wasn't a week I didn't learn something new, even about services I was used to using. Working on all of these things over the course of the semester also showed how they interact with each other. I'm not an expert on everything, by any means, but I think I know enough about what we covered to help me keep up in the future. I've become a convert to Delicious, and look forward to playing around more with podcasting, vodcasting, and Second Life (among others). This class has also given me a greater appreciation for the various strengths and weaknesses of these applications when they are compared with each other.

There was a lot of homework, but I found that the structure was extremely helpful in terms of keeping up with the work. I didn't spend as much time as I would have liked checking out the library examples, but other than that, I think I got pretty much everything done (so far, that is; one blog post and the final project yet to complete after this). Holding this class as an online one is the right choice (and this on-campus commuter found it a relief to not have to drive to New Brunswick and back twice a week for a change).

The readings were good and often thought-provoking. Johnson, in particular, has really challenged my thinking on a number of fronts; I love that in a book. In the future, you might want to include a reading from Clay Shirky's terrific Here Comes Everybody. I know not everybody in class went for Brown and Duguid, but I enjoyed that book when I first read it on my own, and I think their point about what happens when human nature and technological hype collide with each other is very important to remember.

I'll conclude with what may (or may not be) an ironic note; I ended up "hanging out with" with my classmates in this virtual class more often than I did in my on-campus class this semester. I'm a shy person who often has troubles putting myself forward in person, but interacting with others online is often easier for me. I think being online with my classmates (whether working on a project, trying to troubleshoot a problem, or just chatting) was another really positive part of the class.

In a nutshell, thanks! :)

Johnson reading part 2

I thought I was goofing off with a couple of friends on Friday, but I ended up with a pile of evidence in favor of Johnson's Sleeper Curve. I'll spare you the back story, since it will never be available on DVD, but suffice it to say that we found ourselves (after pizza for dinner) at an apartment chockablock with tapes, DVDs, and techno gadgets. We, in this case, equals me and two friends, all OCD (more or less), geeky, and...oh, never mind. Like I said, the back story isn't available on DVD (and you should be grateful it isn't, but I'm starting to wonder what the ratings would be if it were). Two guys, one girl, all birders, all addicted to snappy wordplay, all with issues, two into Flickr and sf, the other one a self-described "online Luddite"...I guess it's like Seinfeld with binoculars and Flickr.

We watched a few episodes of The Middleman and Land of the Lost. The Middleman is based on a comic series and came out last year (I think, I'm not the greatest scholar of tv series) and Land of the Lost was the classic version from the 70s (which I watched when a kid, but that's another story).

The Middleman has a silly faux science fiction premise, but a gaggle of interesting characters, smart dialogue delivered at warp speed, and so many pop culture references that the creator's blog has entries listing all of said references for each episode. Plus, since the dialogue happens so fast, I wanted to watch each episode again just to get it the first time (but what I got, I liked a lot).

Land of the Lost had dinosaurs (you can't go wrong with dinosaurs), no outside references, illogical plots (despite the writership of such sf luminaries as Larry Niven and David Gerrold, in at least one case) (not that The Middleman's plots are that much more coherent), 70s hair and fashion (ok, that's probably unfair), bad special effects...

The Middleman makes you work for your satisfaction so much that when an episode is done, you immediately want to watch it again. Any reference you catch the first time around is all the sweeter (hey, the female protagonist and a neighbor swap song lyrics with each other instead of conversing). Meanwhile, what you see is what you get with Land of the Lost; since you're not distracted by anything else, you can home right in on the plot holes and bad special effects.

So, the question I'm supposed to be answering is what all this means for the library and/or educational worlds. Johnson provides more evidence for the directed learning discussed by Brown and Duguid (you can learn extremely complicated things if you're motivated to do so to fill a perceived need). He also makes a case that you can learn almost without trying, if you're viewing media that encourages you to learn how to keep up with it. Certainly, the fact that libraries now are getting into gaming and stocking DVDs of movies and tv series would seem to be a step in the right direction. After watching a couple of episodes of The Middleman, I could almost see a festival showing DVDs of the series; library staff could hand out scorecards to the audience so they could play along at catching the references. You could even call it the Pop Culture Literacy Festival or something. Ok, maybe not. But that was the kind of fun I was having with my friends on Friday night, and it was quite a bit of fun.

But there are still all those books on the library shelves and as Johnson notes, "Networked text has its own intellectual riches, of course: riffs, annotations, conversations--they all flourish in that ecosystem, and they all can be dazzlingly intelligent. But they nonetheless possess a different kind of intelligence from the intelligence delivered by reading a sustained argument for two hundred pages" (Johnson, p. 186). My question is how libraries can unpackage the intellectual riches in the books on their shelves for those who have grown up in a networked world. The knowledge encoded in our books is every bit as challenging as any game; one could argue that it just suffers from a non-networked delivery mechanism.

I would suggest that it all comes down to ensuring that learning and intellectual challenge are fun, fun like a game you play with your friends. New media seem to be better at capturing that balance than "old media" at the moment, but old media shouldn't be jettisoned. We need to find ways to show that intensive attention to a prolonged logical argument, or looking through an author's eyes for 300 pages, can be as fun as playing World of Warcraft, just fun in a different way.

Gaming research

If I had to choose a gaming console setup for a standard public library, I'd start by asking the library patrons about the kinds of games they enjoy playing or are interested in. I'd make an effort to reach a wide spectrum of users. I'd also look at what similar libraries are doing with their gaming programs; it would be helpful to find other libraries with gaming programs in my local area, because we might be able to work out some kind of consortium-type arrangement (or at least be likely to be dealing with some similar situations). It would also be very useful to hear about others' experience with gaming in other libraries.

I'd also research on gaming review sites and tech sites like CNET in order to find out more general types of information such as what games are available on console gaming setups and whether there are any usability quirks; the sorts of things that wouldn't be library-specific but would be good to know.

Personally, I would be inclined to go with Wii because it gives physical exercise along with the mental challenge of gaming. It also seems to appeal to a wide range of demographic groups.

Screencasting best practices

I'm not going to claim I have anything like the gospel in terms of screencasting best practices, since I'm still trying to figure it out myself. I've only used Jing, which is not always reliable (you get what you pay for?), so I would first say, know your software and its quirks. Comparing more than one screencasting application might not be a bad thing.

Know what you're going to say ahead of time. You don't need to have a script, but do know what you need to convey, so that if you're talking without a script you can still get your message across without a lot of dithering. Beyond this, have an idea of the ideal flow for your screencast in your head. Know how what you're saying in the moment fits not only into that moment but into the larger picture.

Know your window sizes for recording and don't move your mouse around too much or too fast.

Be relaxed and don't get stage fright. You don't have to be perfect, a conversational tone is enough. Your voice is probably also enough. You may not like how it sounds but as far as everyone around you is concerned, that's how you sound, so get used to it.

Tetris screencast

Inspired by some of my classmates, I did a screencast about playing Tetris in Facebook and trying to beat a friend's score (which, ultimately, I didn't do).

One thing I've learned from Gaming Week 1 (and this exercise):

I'm not a social gamer in online media (yet), though I am more social in other online and offline contexts. Maybe it's because I'm an only child and ended up playing board games, computer games and D&D solo (trust me, it is possible to play D&D alone). The real social aspect of gaming for me had to wait till I got to college and started playing arcade games in the student center with the other reprobates who were (and still are) my friends. They got me into playing card games like hearts (and our favorite house variation, double-cancellation hearts). So social gaming, for me, is still something that usually happens offline.

But as an old arcade hand, if Facebook can bring back the fun of trying to beat your best friend's score, maybe it's not such a bad thing. Now they just need to bring back Star Wars, Joust and Tempest (among others)!

Re: Tetris. I was a total Tetris addict for a while until the aches in my hands told me I needed to give it up. Tetris Friends shows me that not only do I still have the chops, ready to be reawakened at any moment, I can also whine about how this version of Tetris is dumbed-down from the bare-bones version I used to play.

Johnson reading

Since I disagree with George Will about most things other than baseball, I'm not really surprised to be disagreeing with his comment about the sophisticated delivery of stupidity. What does surprise me is how impressed I was with the argument made by Johnson's Everything Bad Is Good for You.

I don't consider myself a "real" gamer, but on the other hand, I've always enjoyed games. Board games, card games, D&D, computer games...when I think back on my life, I realize that I've spent a lot of it (probably too much) doing things like that. In other words, Johnson's contention that playing games sharpens the mind seems reasonable. Heck, I can even see a fast change in the learning curve as I've played new games this week and quickly improved my technique and reaction speed.

The part of the Johnson reading I enjoyed most was his discussion of tv. Now, I'm a tv snob. Sure, I've watched my share of junk tv over the years, but these days when I do watch it, it tends to be PBS. I was blown away by the persuasiveness of Johnson's argument that tv has gotten more mentally challenging, complete with very effective examples. That he topped it off by linking the appeal of reality shows back to game-playing (and his excellent discussion of emotional intelligence) was the final slam dunk. I won't think about tv in the same way again (whether or not I watch any more of it^). (It also helps that a good friend of mine is an avid game-player and fan of 24 and Survivor as well, and he even used a similar argument in trying to explain Survivor's appeal to me.)

So, consider me convinced of Johnson's argument, and add one more topic of disagreement with George Will to my lengthy list of them. :)

Ning

Ning is an interesting service. I could see this being useful in a work environment (or any environment) where you need to create your own customized network. Facebook and MySpace have a lot of apps and features that are not really necessary for "serious" networking or collaboration (and could even distract from it). Ning allows a group to focus on things that are important to it, not on an outside site's standard interface.

I think all these services raise the issue of the security of data and information that's stored somewhere outside of an organization, however.

boyd readings

After reading the danah boyd readings assigned for class, I found the blog post most thought-provoking. In terms of libraries, I think one possible message to take away is the following:

Facebook is widely seen as being a more "respectable" site, and therefore would probably be the site a library would gravitate to in order to set up a social networking presence (all other things being equal). However, boyd's description of the teens who tend to use MySpace is a list of those who are socially-ostracized for one reason or another. Those teens may not have much support in their everyday environment; meanwhile, libraries have a mandate to serve all, especially the underserved. Arguably, the teens who need libraries the most are on MySpace rather than Facebook. In any case, since both are such popular sites, it's impossible to ignore one in favor of the other.

It's also a matter of knowing what the local community uses. If a library is in an area with a large Latino population, and Latinos have a strong presence on MySpace, then that library needs to be on MySpace. A library that hosts musical events might want to be on MySpace for the huge musical community to be found there. In any case, these decisions about where and how to set up a library presence in cyberspace need to be based on something more than hype and misunderstandings, and the work of boyd and her colleagues provides a good lens through which to view these trends.

Facebook screencast

Getting this week's screencast homework done was more problematic than it was last week. Jing seems to like to quit at inopportune times. My screencast is about becoming a fan of a radio show (or tv show, or website, or what-have-you) in Facebook. You can find it here.

Sticky?

The question is why social networking sites are "sticky," encouraging people to spend lots of time on them. I have to say that I've been on Facebook in my "real online life" (well, one of them) for close to a year and although I've fooled around with it some, I haven't spent much time on it. In other words, it hasn't been "sticky" for me.

However, some of my offline friends (longtime friends dating back to my college years a long time ago) have started migrating to Facebook in the last couple of months. I think I might've been the first one on Facebook, then another one joined and now she's been successful in getting several more to join. And, guess what? Now I'm spending more time on Facebook (other than homework for this class). I'm not really interested in the goofy little games and such, but now that people I know and care about (and some of whom never check their e-mail^) are pitching their tents there, I'm more interested. So, for me, I'd have to say what makes a site like Facebook sticky is the opportunity to be in touch with my friends (which dovetails nicely with the article by boyd and Ellison).

Although it isn't a social networking site in the sense of Facebook or MySpace, Flickr is the site I find stickiest. Number one, it's networking around something other than myself (namely photos). I'm a shy person, and it's always been easier for me to bond around shared interests rather than throwing the spotlight on myself.

Number two, more of my offline friends found Flickr sooner; some have very active lives on Flickr and absolutely no interest in Facebook.

Number three, it's a less-threatening way of meeting new people. I also prefer Flickr's language of "contacts" over Facebook's "friends;" to me, the title "friend" is not something I hand out lightly. Another thing I prefer about Flickr is that relationships can be asymmetrical; friending on Facebook seems like such a commitment.

Number four, there are oodles of things to do on Flickr in terms of discovering what pools to add your photos to (ok, so my spice rack isn't alphabetized, but I used to reshelve my books for fun) ("Hey, let's do them in chronological order this time!"^); games you can play (I'm not big on Facebook's games but Flickr's Free Association pool is loads of fun); refining your tagging protocols (yes, I really do this!); geotagging your photos; seeing what your contacts have posted; looking for photos of specific subjects...the list goes on. I don't know if Flickr counts as a social networking site for the purposes of this week's classwork, but to me it's way stickier than Facebook.

If my friends continue to gravitate to Facebook, I'll probably find it to be sticky for the opportunity to stay in touch with them. But Flickr offers me the opportunity to stay in touch with my photographically-inclined friends and also offers me lots of geeky little toys and activities into the bargain. What's not to love? :)

Oh, and here's Germany Schaefer

[Germany Schaefer, Washington AL (baseball)] (LOC)
Originally uploaded by The Library of Congress

Schaefer would be called a flake today. He played for the Washington Senators ("First in war, first in peace and last in the American League."). Here he is clowning around with a camera. The photo comes from the Library of Congress and is part of Flickr's The Commons project.

How to add a note in Flickr

This screencast finally ended up being about how to add a note to a Flickr photo. You can find it here.

I like Jing's original-styled interface, but the downside of that is that things aren't where you expect them to be. I think that helped lead to the loss of an absolutely brilliant screencast I did about how to post to a blog from within Flickr; I somehow managed to not save it. :( This was after several false starts on the topic, mostly because I was hit with unexpected twists in the process. It was so annoying; I picked out a great photo of Germany Schaefer...ah, enough of my whining.

I can see how screencasting would be a great tool to create presentations, but there's definitely a learning curve!

SCILS598f08 on YouTube

It's been great fun looking at everybody's videos. Here are some of my favorites:

Gabrielle's vid is priceless! A great tweaking of the librarian stereotype, and the little bounces in the cardigan photos are perfect.

Tara's recipe video was very well done; the music builds, the photos build, all the while you're waiting to find out what the recipe is or waiting for instructions. Finally, you get the punch line at the end. Great job!

I also loved Jen G's How to clean your house in a minute or less. Great flow and cinema verite look; sans the helping hands, that's basically how I clean my condo.

Steve's Aramaic lesson was short, sweet, and to a Star Wars fan, hysterical.

Finally I have to give Renee's second episode of Dr. Hannah thumbs up, because it irresistibly reminded of a friend of mine who really needs to find his own happy place. ;)

All in all, it was great to see the range of topics and approaches everyone used in their vids.

Education vs. entertainment

I think the idea of education vs. entertainment is a bit of a misnomer. Educational videos can be very entertaining in their own right, and the more entertaining they are, the more likely they are to get their message across. I suppose you could make the argument that it's wrong to hold good educational content to the standard of being entertaining: just because a presenter doesn't speak well or know how to make a flashy video doesn't mean that person has no worthwhile knowledge.

The Pew internet report found that educational videos were more or less equally popular across all age groups and both genders, so that suggests a steady demand for such videos. Entertainment videos may fluctuate in popularity, especially those that are related to some trend, but people are always looking for information on how to do things. This steady demand suggests that though educational videos may not be at the top of the ratings, they will have an ongoing demand and sustained popularity.

"Educational" video

I figured I'd do a video about how to chop an onion, but it's impossible to film oneself in the act of chopping. Therefore, this is not as clear as a "how to" video really should be. The narration is also not the most focused in the world. I guess it demonstrates the basic idea of the vid assignment, though.



You can also find this vid on blip.tv here.

"Entertainment" video

This was meant to be an educational video, but once I threw some dynamic music behind it (which I kind of have cold feet about), it became way more entertaining (at least to me). Photos of moths, with music more suited to a thriller. It plays much better on my hard drive than on YouTube, at least, to me.



You can also see this on YouTube here.

Flickring the class

Looking at the photos in the scils598 and scils598f08-edexperience pools reveals some striking commonalities. I think just about everybody had book-related photos, mostly books in a large quantity. Transportation and technology were also popular; I link these because in this case, on-campus students drive or take mass transit, while online students use their computers to "travel to" class (in other words, photos of the RU campus itself were actually somewhat scarce, given that everyone in class is a Rutgers student). Family and/or pets were also popular, an indication of the social networks that keep us going. Food got lots of attention, whether it was a cup of tea during a study session, the vending machines at SCILS that are forced to substitute for real meals, a home cupboard, or takeout menus.

However, there was evidence of some differences (perhaps more evidence as one looks through everybody's own photo stream as opposed to the groups). Pursuits such as skiing, wandering the NJ pine barrens, mushroom collecting, and kayaking were all represented (though, now that I think of it, these are all "outdoorsy" activities). There was also some evidence of travel, as well as a tendency to stay home in comfort.

All in all, it seems like a group of students with more in common than not.

Telling a story

My story is a classic tale of the road not taken, featuring a relatively innocent American in the cosmopolitan city of Helsinki.

Jen H's story

Podcasting vs. blogging

A few thoughts about podcasting vs. blogging as an information source...

Podcasting's huge plus is the sound of the human voice. Text, particularly text on the internet, is subject to misinterpretation because of the absence of the inflections found in the human voice. Any topic where personality is as important or more important than content (perhaps a "Meet Our Librarians" feature), or even when a dry subject may be given more life by an enthusiastic speaker (scientists in the business of popularizing science know this well), could benefit from podcasts.

Subjects where specific facts are important and need to be retained may do better with text, however. A text-based blog post allows the reader to take in the information at his/her own pace, rather than trying to keep up with a speaker's pace by jotting notes and almost inevitably missing information. Searching within text-based blog posts is much better developed than search within audio files, as well, which is another factor in favor of text as a way of expressing information that needs to be remembered.