NMC Campus Observer

RL/SL Mashups at ELI

JS Saltwater (aka Joe Clark) : Mar 29, 2007 09:56pm

One of the more memorable moments from the conference was during the session put on by Sarah “Intellagirl” Robbins & company. They had a roomful of newbs traipsing around Middletown (where Sarah teaches) in short order, and it was really something to see — in both worlds. Lots of energy and laughter.

For fun, I switched to an Ent avatar and was promptly asked by Ourania Fizgig if she could snap my photo. Turns out I’d met her RL counterpart outside the hotel that morning, waiting for the shuttle bus to the conference — but we didn’t realize that until later, when talking about her SL astronomy project while waiting for a different shuttle to the airport.

With all the SL connections at the conference, I was feeling like those millenials (I’m pushing 50 myself) you read about, whose online and offline worlds begin to blur. That was especially apparent the afternoon of Day 2, when I served as RL-to-SL stenographer while CDB/Alan moderated a great panel discussion (the audio was still being problematic in SL). Several of the avis present in the NMC ampitheatre had their questions relayed to and answered by the panel, which seemed pleased and a little bemused to be responding to distant participants that way.

Speaking of mashups, in addition to the Geowall/SL 3-D combo that has been mentioned here before, after seeing some of the haptics tech that was presented by Gary Bertoline and Enkhtuvshin Dorjgotov (from Purdue’s Envision Center) I’m looking forward to a haptic-feedback connection for my avi in SL — maybe via Nintendo Wii? The possibilities boggle the mind: how about virtual tennis lessons? Trips to Mars? Metaphorical travels through social networks and hegemonic resistances?

Story filed under: Campus Headlines, People, Places, Things, What's Happening

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