Garden Interlude: The Illusion of Control

Location: Back & Front Yards

Today is a good day to be in Second Life: the sky turned gray, and it's spitting rain. Yesterday, however, it was sunny and warm. I cut grass, then pulled some weeds from a bed still workable because of recent rains. The soil was rich, dark brown, and perfectly amended from years of organic methods. When the lawn was done, I saw a neighbor pushing his mower. Soon we were all on his patio, drinking beer and sharing stories.

As I worked the soil yesterday, watching irises about to blossom, I thought about those on my SL friends list who are always online. Why do they bother when the day is perfect and the outdoors beckons?

Perhaps they bother for the same reason I make big plans this time of year: we have an illusion of control.

In the Mid-Atlantic states, we have a blissful period when our gardens are not our masters: late March to early June. Then humidity, rampant weeds, and increasingly unstable summer weather bring riot and chaos. Perhaps those who torture their land with herbicides and pesticides don't have these problems, but I don't hold with that practice...in fact, I consider it evil. Such short-sightedness is poisoning our water and reducing biodiversity.

For about eight weeks, however, all gardeners have this wonderful illusion that they can control the flux of nature's gifts and whims.

Yet every day in Second Life, as long as we pay tier and stay within our prim-limits and free of griefers, we appear to be in control. Things mostly remain where we left them. No dust appears on our virtual furniture. The sky can be set to the exact mood and lighting we wish. If we get tired of irksome people, we mute them.

Yet in the long run, are we really in control? What would we do after a sustained outage at Linden Lab? Or worse still, if the Lab shut its doors?
What would become of our perfect gardens then?

H.P. Lovecraft Day in Second Life

Location: Arkham, MA Sim

I knew I'd find the Lovecraftians eventually. Tekelili Tantalus, of Hollow Earth, had told me of a sale at his shops in honor of HP Lovecraft Day. I have no idea why today is a holiday for "HPL," as we fans all call him. It's not his birthday.

If you know nothing of Lovecraft, you may find everything I write unfathomable....

But who needs an explanation when summoning extra-dimensional horrors from beyond the small circle of light that guards our fragile world in order to strip the earth of all terrestrial life and return it, primal and pure, into the howling voids to its original owners where pipes, held in nameless paws, play to accompany Azathoth, the Sultan of Chaos and primal font of all uncleanliness, in his mad dance. Ia! Ia! Cthulhu fhtagn!

Sorry...back to my post.


Tekelili noted that he wanted to celebrate HPL by offering items--and he's a hell of a designer--at 50% discount. I walked away with a Loremaster avatar shown at the top of this post, weapons, a Lovecraftian monocle, a statue of one of the Great Old Ones, and a set of very cool weapons for roleplaying in Armada. And a little minion of Great Cthulhu shoulder pet...

Friends from Armada came by to lay down their Linden Dollars as well. Storm Thunders, on the right, is a Cray, a race from Mieville's novel The Scar. My friend Viv, of the Armada Council, is at the left.



Get your wallets out today before midnight, SL Time, and go to the Arkham or Hollow-Earth shops.

Virtual Harlem: A Trove of Good Pedagogy

Location: Virtual Harlem Sim

Aha! Moments are not rare in Second Life, though over time I've found them coming a little less frequently as I gain experience in the virtual world.

Simulations that are well made for teaching, however, still get me so excited that I can barely resist the urge to teleport home and begin building one. That was the effect of Virtual Harlem on me, during the a recent tour of the three-sim region. One feels immersed in the place and the presence of others living as though it were the Jazz Age. Classes in writing and African-American studies use the project; other academic disciplines certainly could as well.

I toured an interactive museum of The Men in Bronze: Harlem Hellfighters, a pioneering all-black unit that served our nation in the Great War. The videos there have not been readily available to the public, and museum director Daoud Zipper, an archivist with the Washington University Film Archive, was delighted to share his materials in Virtual Harlem.

He's hoping to re-enact the famous homecoming march of the Hellfighters, from lower Manhattan to Harlem, too. Student, faculty, and friends would portray the marchers as well as the eager crowds that greeted them in a powerfully postive moment in African-American history.


In Virtual Harlem we already had a crowd the day of my tour, including conferees from the conference on Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education. Claudia Linden dropped by Virtual Harlem Books to chat with students from a second-semester writing class led by Bryan Mnemonic. His co-presenters Oronoque Westland (my friend from the SL Education Round Table) and Carrie Pennell are pictured.



I didn't tell Bryan's students that they had guest of honor; Claudia has long been an avid supporter of education at the Lab, and the students were so delighted to talk about their projects and the class that I didn't want to spoil the magic with any self-consciousness.


Time did not permit me to get over to the Cotton Club to chat with Zora Neale Hurston and Bessie Smith. I plan a return visit in my Jazz-Age finest. I was able to catch most of a set by Trowzer Boa's Jazz band, in the public park/performance space. They play live jazz there regularly.

Virtual Theorists Project: Second Life Gets Freud & More in 3D

Location: Virtual Theorists' Project, Montclair State University

In a required graduate course in Counseling Theories, Edina Gumbo's students don't just read about Freud, Jung, Adler, and Rogers. They build their offices and make a model of the Freudian personality: an iceberg where one confronts the Id making demands, the Superego saying no, and the Ego playing mediator.

The students, Edina, and AJ Brooks spent a year making this project come to life. I had a sneak, hush-hush preview a few months back. You can visit the project for edification or to use in a class. The landing zone provides a map to the entire complex.

Features:

Visit Freud's office and chat up the Freud-bot. I told Doctor Freud of my childhood nightmares about a chimp that made me hold its sweaty little paw. The Freudbot was flummoxed by me, especially my question about billable hours.

Visit the offices of Carl Jung, Carl Rogers, and Alfred Adler to learn about their work. All three offices have note-card givers for information about their theories.

Visit the Iceberg. Freud's office leads to this marvel, and I plan to use it when I next teach Freud in our interdisciplinary first-year course at Richmond. It is open to other classes.

One begins below the water, in the realm of the subconscious, and walks up from the infantile cravings of the ID (represented by insistent teddy-bears):



Inquisitive whispers: Read to me!
Frustrated whispers: I want to stay home!
Angry whispers: Give that back!
Hungry whispers: Feed Me! Feed Me!
Inquisitive whispers: Read to me!
Happy whispers: Let's Play!
Greedy whispers: Buy me that car!
Angry whispers: Give that back!

Until one comes upon the watchdog of the Superego (represented by Lego-like cops). I vaulted the gate, hoping they would chase me.



The build will be there for future classes, who will add details and also make simulations related to other theorists.

So what did Edina's students say about building and using the simulations? They noted that it was more demanding, but more rewarding also. We quizzed them at a post-tour Q&A:

• "SL made the theories come to life and were much easier to understand"
• "the time applying the theories was effective"
• "The fact that everything was so 'visual' really helped me"
• "We were forced to apply the theories because of SL. Made learning it more well rounded."
• "building in SL emphasized the need to do further research beyond just reading the text book"
• "I feel that it was good using SL because it made us have to read and learn these things on our own. We didn't have to rely on the professor telling us everything"
• "I think it was a very creative way to learn what we needed-- more than just reading and presenting in class"
  

Not everyone craved such active learning: students had the option to switch from a hybrid class to a traditional face-to-face class. Some did during the first week. One participant noted that the hybrid class meant "a lot of work outside of class to familiarize ourselves with 2nd life-setting it up, getting avatars" and another student added "and a lot of time building and searching for objects."



Those who enrolled in Edina's section show how powerfully simulations can change educational practices. All it takes is dedicated faculty, supportive I.T. and administration, and a lot of time.


And just maybe some work by Linden Lab to add some Reality Principle to our avatars' Ids. Consider this photo from the VWBPE conference: I think the Lindens must have put in a default "stare at breasts" anim in male avis. I need a Superego HUD!