Required Materials:

• Writing Analytically. This text is in stock at UR Bookstore
• Blog account at Blogger and Photo-sharing account at Koinup
• Digital camera or cell phone with camera and ability to transfer photos to your computer
• Earbuds or headphones for audio with campus computers (be sure yours has a long cord!)
• Complete lack of fear when writing and a non-lazy brain.

Strongly Suggested Materials:

• Computer capable of running Second Life® (see their System Requirements page).
• Computer headset with mic for voice work in Second Life.

Composition Book & Blog Assignments

You will do two short weekly writing assignments.  Each of these will help you play with ideas and begin drafting for your projects. 

Composition Book: ALWAYS BRING IT TO CLASS. You should use this book as your writing journal for ANY preliminary writing you want to do.  It's the place for note-taking, drawing pictures, noting sources, ranting and raving in a civil way. Once in a while you will have to show it to a classmate, so keep that in mind!  Mostly, however, this book's audience is you and me.

ONE REQUIREMENT: I expect a response to each reading we do  in your composition book. How will I grade these books?  Well, A-F of course, but the trick is that I won't collect everyone's each week.  I will pick up all the composition books when the wiki projects come due, but each week, at random, three of you will have to turn in your composition books.  If you don't have them in class with you, you get an F...so always bring them to class.

Blog: After drop/add settles down, I will set up each group's wiki page.  From each group page I'll make a starting page and blog page for each of you.  I will randomly grade three blogs each week, as with the composition books.

HOW IT WORKS: Each week, drawing upon your entries in the composition book, you are to post a blog entry. Some weeks the topic will be assigned (see the schedule). For other weeks, you'll decide what you wish to write: about a reading we've done, writing as a college student (gnash your teeth over Core if you wish; I won't tell your teacher), about some aspect Second Life.  You can get brownie points from me by commenting on others' blogs.  Do not launch into personal attacks, profanity, or other stupidity; keep in mind that what you write is public to anyone on earth interested enough to visit our wiki.  And given the attention my last class got when we used Second Life, we will have visitors.  It's hard being a pioneer, but you can do it!

The best blog entries about Second Life may be edited, with your permission, and republished at "In a Strange Land."

Class Schedule: All readings are from Writing Analytically unless otherwise noted. 

There will be a few photocopied short readings handed out that are not on this schedule.

*Watch the five videos below before Day 1:

What is Second Life?  Well, let's see if its creator can explain why it's not merely an online game, but a place where users, not the company, create most of the content and any "story" that take place.  Keep in mind that the virtual world has changed a lot since 2006. Many corporations left, unable to come up with a business model. New ones more capable of understanding how SL works have come in (Scion has replaced Pontiac, for instance) and growth of the economy and virtual population has slowed but become more international.  Philip Rosedale himself, while still part of Linden Lab, also stepped down as CEO.

While anyone can create content, some of the creations are stunningly beautfiul. Artist "Robbie Dingo" made a piece of video art, a 3D version of Van Gogh's "Starry Night." It pushes the boundaries of what is possible in SL as a builder. I find the embedded YouTube version does not give the best sense of what Dingo accomplished. You can see a far higher quality version in the creator's blog. Try his "Higher Quality" version to see it at its best.

Now check this video about the educational potential of SL. Note that her picture of your generation as being raised on "video games and MTV" is a huge generalization (an "unsupported assertion" in Essid's Pet Peeves).

Still, her advice remains accurate for the educational uses of SL and gives a sense of how this class will use the virtual world. 

Finally, watch Disptaches 1 and 2 from the Cinemax Documentary "Molotov Alva & His Search For The Creator: A Second Life Odyssey." If you enjoy his adventures, feel free to watch more. I find the beginning a lot stronger than the later dispatches, because Alva doesn't really go beyond what we've all found--and you will find--to be true in SL. Still, the video work is nice and a few bits are memorable, others very sad; some folks do use SL as therapy. I hope it works for them.

Doo-Dads & Doodles: Ideas for Fall 2009:

• Gwyneth Llewelyn on Immersion vs. Augmentation: A way to sensitize writers to the differences between virtual worlds & social-networking sites.  Do writers understand what she calls the "Old Internet"? How were they taught--if they were taught--to comport themselves online? How is their current behaviour different?
• Ditch "Molotov Alva" viewings in favor of work with "90 Day Jane," and the revelation of the truth about her falsfied blog.  Topics:  created identity online? Is it art? Is it fraud?
• Add Baron's From Pencils to Pixels early, to establish a theoretical frame for seeing how communications technologies evolve in three stages. Then late in semester, consider where SL is (writers gather data all semester to make the claim).
• Add early assignment paired with Baron: use wiki's formatting tools to evaluate how it influences communication (learn how to format text and images here while applying it to Baron's ideas).
• Initial impression to later claim: where is SL on Baron's scale? What more would you have to know in order to make a claim worthy of a longer analysis?
• Tasks: Cut interview assignment by integrating interview into marketing assignment. Add guidelines for Scavenger-hunt goals. Add Scavenger Hunt task with analysis of a detailed simulation (such as Tut's Tomb). Replace Electric Sheep w/ Rezzable. Clarify that group must split up hunt tasks/rewards. Blog-post guidelines (link to Au's posts on what makes a blog post work well).