I hear all the time how we should be so cautious about virtual friends and how dangerous that is. But when my "real life" co-worker mentioned that she had to do a project for her MBA, I had an idea.
For her project, she had to research one of several topics including the "Human Genome Project" (HGP) and the "Mars Rover Project." In SecondLife, I had met Archivist Llewellyn at the NASA Colab and joined a group that fed information to me about NASA activities. So I would attend these activities when I could and just starting talking with the Archivist. After a while, we became Facebook friends where she'd feed even more great information to me. We shared interests in teaching, Science, and space. So when my real-life co-worker mentioned her project, I got excited and hooked them up.
Turns out, Archivist Llewellyn is really Shannon Bohle, an award winning scientist/educator who worked on the HGP as well as on the Curiosity AI for the new breed of Mars Rovers. I attended Shannon's presentation in SecondLife at the VWBPE conference this past March, where she showed us a virtual prototype of the Curiosity AI Mars Rover and gave us a quick tutorial for writing AIML (artificial intelligence markup language). I knew what I was witnessing was history. The educators in the session agreed.
This weekend, I am witness to the power of virtual friends connecting with real life friends. Shannon has provided my co-worker with expert research materials for her MBA project. Shannon is an amazing woman, sharing her knowledge with a complete stranger, out of the goodness of her heart and because of her passion for teaching. I get nothing out of this, except a reinforcement that virtual friends can also be great real life friends, too.
Saturday, May 21, 2011
Saturday, May 7, 2011
Been Missing You
As tens of thousands of people have discovered, my SecondLife (www.secondlife.com) avatars have become my way of expressing my artistic talents. Okay, so I'm not really designing clothes, or writing music, or writing a book. When a terrific event comes up on my calendar, I can spend weeks shopping for new clothes, eyes, skin, shape, or even full avatars for my avatar to wear. When I just want to go exploring, I enjoy hooking up with newbies and taking them along on "in world" adventures. At one point, I stumbled into a "role play" game, where zombies were attacking us, and we had to climb into a space ship and fly out. But lately, the real world has been encroaching on my SecondLife time. So I'm missing my avatars, and the personalities they draw out of me. That may sound a bit schizophrenic, but I think I have it under control.
That's not to say, the friends I've made on SecondLife are replaceable.That is absolutely not the case. They are a wonderful support system, since I can discuss things with them that I could never do with local friends. That distance provides a blanket of obscurity, and eases any worry of bias or widespread rumor. One of my SL friends offered that he's a transvestite, while another revealed that he's an alcoholic. It's just easier to talk with them, because they have exposed presumably "real life" secrets. Tongue in cheek, here, because everyone plays their part and you can appear to be something entirely different from reality. But in SL, everyone is a good dancer, and everyone has perfect hair, and perfect teeth, etc., etc. And if you wanted to protest in a big rally and march in support of a volatile cause, you can do that safely in SL. I can't claim that it would have the impact in the real world, but it does create a support system for those that ARE really in that volatile situation. And as we've seen in recent history in Egypt and Libya, it only takes a single spark to light a fire to drown out the darkness.
So, when I say I've been missing you, I mean it. Real life gets in the way far too much. SecondLife allows me to drop out of a crushing reality and "wear" another life for a little while.
That's not to say, the friends I've made on SecondLife are replaceable.That is absolutely not the case. They are a wonderful support system, since I can discuss things with them that I could never do with local friends. That distance provides a blanket of obscurity, and eases any worry of bias or widespread rumor. One of my SL friends offered that he's a transvestite, while another revealed that he's an alcoholic. It's just easier to talk with them, because they have exposed presumably "real life" secrets. Tongue in cheek, here, because everyone plays their part and you can appear to be something entirely different from reality. But in SL, everyone is a good dancer, and everyone has perfect hair, and perfect teeth, etc., etc. And if you wanted to protest in a big rally and march in support of a volatile cause, you can do that safely in SL. I can't claim that it would have the impact in the real world, but it does create a support system for those that ARE really in that volatile situation. And as we've seen in recent history in Egypt and Libya, it only takes a single spark to light a fire to drown out the darkness.
So, when I say I've been missing you, I mean it. Real life gets in the way far too much. SecondLife allows me to drop out of a crushing reality and "wear" another life for a little while.
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