Cultures in Second Life

What is really possible in Second Life, regarding “Change”, with a capital C? And especially in my fields of interest: that is intercultural dialogue and conflict resolution.

I signed up for SL after the Imagine seminar, but I had some computer problems in the beginning. Since a week or two I can walk and fly around without much technical problems. After my first encounters with other avatars, I felt it was not much different from an average bar… But I realised I just had to look for the right places (and those are definetely not in the “most popular places” list in the search engin!). After Fraukes post on Better World Island, I went to have a look, but I never met anyone there.

Then last week I discovered a group of (future) mediators, who plan to use SL to facilitate trainings with people from all over the world. But they also have real ambitious plans: host Real Life mediations in SL…! You are not in the same place, but there is still the visual aspect.
Still, the thing that really interests me, is the intercultural apsect. What is actually possible in SL, apart from facilitating a training with people you know through RL. I mean, in SL you look like you want to. And these looks, even if you can change your appearance any way you want, ae not really connected to RL cultures. So do intercultural issues matter?

This afternoon I chatted with a teacher from a learning center in SL, who suddenly made remarks about what I wrote about my avatar in my profile (about communication in SL and intercultural possiblities). He told me he always reads peoples profile, because that is the only way to learn anything about another avatar: it is the closest you get to someones real colours!

Maybe I’m taking SL too serious, or maybe I still have to find out the use of SL in intercultural dialogue myself! Do you have any experience with this?

Storytelling in Second Life

Maybe it was the topic of digital storytelling. Perhaps there was an allure of the mystery behind “Who is Gudand Hao?”. Whatever the draw, on February 05, 2007, a crowd of more than 65 avatars showed up for NMC Campus Teachers Buzz Session on storytelling.

Digital storytelling is the voicing of a personal story using any electronic medium, such as video, stills, e-mail, blog, etc. As mentioned on the Center for Digital Storytelling Web site, we all have stories about the events, people, and places in our lives. In a group process, the sharing of these stories connects people in special ways.

The Center for Digital Storytelling, based in Berkeley, California, encourages people to explore and tell their stories on personal films, lasting 2-3 minutes.

The use of storytelling within Second Life was a central theme in the presentation. Media exchanges or sharing already-created stories might be effective. A group could gather to create and perform stories.

“My main interest is if you could hold story circles here,” Hao wondered. “Could you get people to reflect on a considered narrative and find a way to get intimate about the story?”

When storytelling workshops are conducted in first life, individuals learn to peel back layers of meaning. People receive instruction on how to read body language to give a story greater depth. “The body language that normally comes from this kind of thing would be spontaneous, with movement and expression not purposefully initiated. That would be a real challenge in a world where your animations are deliberate,” Nethermind Bliss commented. CDB Barkley added, “There is telling stories IN Second Life vs. telling stories WITH Second Life. In RL we are often unaware of our animations.”

Hao pointed out that “…the human factor in storytelling is about listening. Like right now I can’t see any of your eyes… If I were performing, I would know which of you are falling asleep and which of you are with me and I would adjust the story.”

Residents discussed using voice within SL to tell a story. “I have seen some third-party camera demos in SL where the camera-person takes video of themselves… and has a talking animation… close up. It is very effective and would work well in a story,” commented HVX Silverstar.

“I think the ideas of good storytelling, that is the ability to create empathy and emotional connection, is still a holy grail for interactive storytelling,” Hao said.

It was the consensus that, if storytelling were discussed again, an initial discussion would then be followed by small group chat. Many felt that the group physically needed to sit in a circle to encourage the process.

Hao ended the session by sharing the story of a colleague whose wife has cancer.

Second Life Just Like The First

And another Spiegel-Online article on Second Life:

“Second Life, the four-million-strong online community, is turning more and more into a pixelated copy of reality and its institutions, complete with rampant consumerism, political candidates and lawsuits. Whatever happened to the brave new virtual world?
(…)
Goodbye cyberpunks, hello traditionalists. Four years after US company Linden Lab created Second Life, the virtual utopia is resembling the real world and its mechanisms more and more. And as the population booms — the number of registered avatars has risen 600 percent in the last six months to four million — the on- and offline worlds are beginning to wonder whether Second Life should be run by institutions of civil society rather than a benevolent corporate dictatorship.
(…)
Social change through Second Life?
Still, Loic Le Mer believes that the real world could change for the better because of Second Life. In his opinion, the online game is at the vanguard of globalization, “but globalization as an opportunity, not a threat.”

He predicts that more and more people from all over the world will earn a living through Second Life in the future. “The great thing about Second Life is that it brings together people from all countries, and everybody can make money by creating an object and selling it,” he says, adding that an acquaintance of his makes €1,000 a month from selling virtual glasses to avatars.
(…)
Social change through Second Life?

Still, Loic Le Mer believes that the real world could change for the better because of Second Life. In his opinion, the online game is at the vanguard of globalization, “but globalization as an opportunity, not a threat.”

He predicts that more and more people from all over the world will earn a living through Second Life in the future. “The great thing about Second Life is that it brings together people from all countries, and everybody can make money by creating an object and selling it,” he says, adding that an acquaintance of his makes €1,000 a month from selling virtual glasses to avatars.”

AIESEC Social Entrepreneur from Canada

Hi Guys! Fellow AIESEC Victoria, B.C, Canada Alumni here! I’m actually giving a talk to the University of Victoria’s alumni undergrads tomorrow about the AIESEC group dealing with issues here locally.

I’m the Founder of http://www.csef.ca - The Canadian Social Entrepreneurship Foundation. Take a peak. We also have a blog - we’d love to feature you guys!

I noticed that you are featuring Second Life on your blog. take a look at a business i’m helping start up out of Stanford: www.villagethegame.com . The demo will be out VERY soon and we just entered the Stanford Business Plan Social Entreprenuership Challenge!! Wish us luck We’ve invested some money into it and travelled to africa and india to make the game a real thing. We’ve teamed up with Kickstart and Cosmos and have the support of KIVA , and other fantastic organizations! Log onto www.villagethegame.com and sign up!!!

Great stuff! I’m going to read through this some more and keep sending my readers your way! If any of your readers are interested in writing for a blog or providing articles to www.csef.ca - please let me know!! Love your feedback on our website and what we are doing!!

Keep up the great work! AIESEC FOREVER! I’m going to include this blog in my presentation tomorrow at 6pm PST to the AIESEC University Club!

Read more about Jason

Education in Second Life

First of all, I learned today in Second Life where to get free clothes, to change into a new outfit, get rid of my tale, change the day-time…and then I went for the Trinity College Dublin “Education in SL” conference:

(click on picture to enlarge)

It was a bit crowded and my poor little laptop was really working hard on the graphics.

It was doing well for the intro: a speaker that I wasn’t seeing introduced the process. It got worse when they started with a video about the Harvard Law School: they use wikis and blogs to support their virtual classes in SL.

After that they turned off the voice that I was hearing clearly but others not and started to explain everything through chatting, which I missed completely. And chaos started when we were supposed to split up into two groups: I did not get the questions, I did not know where to go and my system was slowing down stopping me from going anywhere and cutting into receiving chat messages.

So I flew to a corner and was “listening” into some chat conversations around me and at the same time watching a video about “Global Kids in Second Life” a New York-based educational organization that is running an online leadership program in SL Teens.

And then that was it for my graphic card: I could neither move nor listen to a conversation properly and I left SL a bit frustrated with these qustions on my mind:

• How is learning in SL different to learning in RL?
• What can you learn in SL?
• How can you create a learning experience in a chat room?

More SL learning experiences to follow soon!

Second Life ‘optimists’ gathering

Wow, 3 days into Second Life and we had our first circle discussion (actually, the meeting was another outcome of the OpenSpace session at Imagine) in SL!

We, that is Sofia, Mark (from the Pioneers of Change Cultivation Unit), Andrew from Learning House in London and myself.

Absolutely amazing: we started off with a warm-up drumming session on Better World Island:

(click on picture to enlarge)

We then moved into a cirlce conversation in the Peace and Justice Center exploring questions like:

• What has brought us here into SL today?
• How are we all connected to Sofia? (Sofia says: ”only as a starting point cos we didnt all know each other but I did. It was our way of introducing each other. We realise even a check-in is a new type of experience in SL- when you see the avatar but dont quite know the person behind it yet..we are learning.. come learn with us!”)
• What have been our experiences so far in SL?
• How can we create a hub for social innovation and change in SL?
• What would we like 1 million people to do to change the world?
• How can we continue our explorations in SL together?

(click on picture to enlarge)

I actually was the first one to ask about dancing possibilities in SL (I am the last one to do that in real life ) and we ended up in a techno rave festival: me dancing flying in midair (sorry, forgot to take a picture there but I have witnesses!)

We casually meet Friday late afternoons now, so if you would like to join in just drop Sofia or me a line!

By the way, anyone up for the SL Socrates Café on early Wednesday morning next week? Let’s see, if I can drag myself out of bed for this

Greetings from Better World Island!

Wow, I was just born into Second Life yesterday, had my first culture shock last night and today I have already left the Orientation Island to explore a bit around Better World Island. I think that was a good choice: I have been there at night and have not met a single soul - spooky!

I had a first quick glance at the Camp Dafur exhibition (click on picture to enlarge)

And then, I found the perfect place to have meaningful conversations in the future: the fireplace in the Peace and Justice Center (click on picture to enlarge)

Second Life: Better World Island

During the open space we talked about using Second Life (SL) as a vehicle to transport our ideas.

I just read an article about Better World Island in SL (yet, have not been there so far).

What do you think about the potential of SL to contribute to social change?