Mission Code Name: Saving Isis and Gender and Race Switch Project

Its the middle of November already!? This month has been a really busy month for my English class. We were assigned two fun, but in depth projects in Second Life and Heritage Key. One was called Saving Isis and the other was called a Gender and Race Switch. These were time consuming projects and we had to write long Wiki projects on them, but I still managed to have fun while completing them. We worked in groups for our Saving Isis project, and I even was fortunate enough to complete at least the adventure part of our gender and race switch project with a friend.

For our Saving Isis project, we were challenged with the task to find a way to save the mural Howard Carter destroyed when he uncovered the Tomb of King Tut. He had cut through a beautiful mural of an Egyptian Goddess, just so he could remove the sarcophagus of the King.  Carter discovered the tomb in 1922 and didn't have the same technology we have, so my group of peers and I set out to devised a plan to save her. After extensive research and much bickering between our group, we came up with a final solution. We wrote and explained all about our plans in our wiki's how we bypassed the mural and rescued King Tut's sarcophagus an treasures without destroying Isis.

Our second project was a gender and race switch project, in which we had to switch our avatar's race or gender. I transformed into a African American female and my friend transformed into a blond haired girl. Our task was explore Second Life and see if we were treated differently. I was fortunate to share this experience with a friend. Luckily, I was not discriminated against at all in Second Life and instead I was actually flirted with. As me and my friend explored, we took pictures of the people we met and interacted with, so we could write our project about our experiences in our new skin. We both had a pleasant experience and was able to write about something happy in out Wiki's. I had a blast.

These projects were long and time consuming, but they were the most interesting ones of my English class so far. I enjoyed solving the Isis mystery and my experiencing Second Life as an African American avatar. I had an intriguing and insightful experience working with these projects.

YoVille vs. Second Life

On Facebook, there is a miniature virtual world called YoVille that fairly resembles Second Life. In YoVille the avatars are very short with heads larger than their bodies. The avatars are very unrealistic, but I still play YoVille religiously. I am very addicted to YoVille, beacause it is very simple to understand, unlike Second Life. Second Life, I find, is much more complicated than YoVille, but definitely more sophisticated than it.

In YoVille, you are able create an avatar and dress it just like in Second Life, but in YoVille you are automatically given and apartment to decorate and use. This differs from Second Life, in which you need to purchase land if you want to build or decorate anything and you pay with real money. In YoVille, you are allotted two hundred coins initially to purchase furniture and decorations for you apartment. There are many shops were you can buy food, clothing and flowers because YoVille is its own little town. Once you run out of coins, though you can go to work and earn more. You can buy YoVille dollars with real money if you wish, but you don't have to. You can also earn coins by visiting your friends that are members too. Second Life does not allow you to earn Linden dollars and instead you have to pay real cash for them.

Second Life and YoVille are complete opposites. Second Life is much more realistic than YoVille, and much more advanced. There are also nowhere near as many avatars in YoVille as there is in Second Life, but to me YoVille is more fun to me. It is much more simplistic and sometimes simpler virtual worlds are better.

Altering Poe

"It was the work of the rushing gust- but then without those doors there DID stand the lofty and enshrouded figure of the lady Madeline of Usher. There was blood upon her white robes, and the evidence of of some bitter struggle upon every portion of her emancipated frame." The lines describe the mysterious Madeline Usher, who in Poe's story there is very little detail about who she was and what malady she suffered from. Her brother, Roderick Usher, is just as mysterious suffering from a different illness, which source is never found out and only hinted at in Poe's story. Why are these characters so mysterious to us and why does the narrator and Roderick's friend not explore more about the situation.

To change Poe's story, I would play Roderick's friend that he asked to come visit him. The friend/ narrator seems to be a bystander in the whole story. I would be a more active participant and try to uncover the cause of my friend aliments. I would definitely not just take my friend's word for it about his sister that the physicians could not cure her. The friend just seems to accept everything that Roderick says and does not question the mysterious nature of the the house and his friend and his sister. I would never let this happen. I would try to uncover the mystery so I could aid my friend's suffering instead of just letting him continue to slid into the darkness of his mind. If I was in the story, I would try to talk to Roderick about what happened since the last time that I saw him and then when I had the full story I could decide the best way to help him and his sister.

Roderick might be resistant to telling me about his history but I would press him until he told me. I would also have to be careful to determine if he is telling me the truth or not. Roderick did not seem in the right state of mind, so he might not be able to recall how he came to be in this condition. I would not let that deter me. I would try asking the servants what they have seen and heard. Once I could understand the problem I would be able to find the solution.

I would alter Poe's story in this way, because as Poe wrote it, there are too many unanswered questions left at the end. The mysterious ending fascinates some readers, but I was left very frustrated and annoyed and would really enjoy be able to change the story.

Second Life...A good communications technology?

How do you work this? The biggest problem SL faces as a communications technology is its not easy and accessible for everyone to use. Second Life is a difficult technology to decipher without have an "inside" source, e.g. an experienced Second Life user. I don't think I would have every been able to figure out how to create and modify my avatar without the assistance of my teacher. He has been involved with Second Life technology for a while  and I never would have figured out how to teleport anywhere or talk to anyone without him! Most people don't have time to sit down and read pages and pages of instructions or tutorials. They want to just be able to easily communicate and navigate around. Second Life lacks this quality factor of a distinguished communication technology.

Second Life software, in simplest terms, needs to be "dumbed" down for even the most technologically challenged person to understand how it works. I believe when Second Life is  easier to use, then more people will join to be able to explore and talk and hang out with friends that they rarely get to see. It is just too complicated right now and less people are joining, so the world looks empty. Second Life has loads of potential to be an excellent communications technology, but work still needs to be done to promote and search for new members and expand the world by making it business-friendly. Only then in my opinion, will Second Life be an awesome way for people and businesses to communicate. Once Second Life is simpler I believe more people will join.