Module 4 Blog Comments

Tawana and Heather

The Disruptive Power of Second Life

First let me start with my experience with Second Life:  my middle school students LOVE the idea of it and always want to access the various sites they use at home.  I have found that this is more popular with my African American students compared to my Caucasian students.  Of course I don’t allow my students to access these types of sites in my classroom but there are always a few that try their hardest to get around this “classroom rule”.  Before I was educated on “Second Life” sites, I thought they were pretty much harmless but several years ago I monitored a few of my student’s usage by creating my own avatar on the site and found that this type of peer interaction can actually be harmful. 

Second life sites allow individuals the potential to create a virtual individual and pretty much be the person they can’t be in the “real world”.  They are able to create the avatar to appear like they would like to appear or as an individual that they may think is “cool” whether it is a person accepted by society.  They can change their attitude to one that can be portrayed at disrespectful and completely unacceptable.  This “virtual person” they create is one they can hide behind, one they can use to be hurtful to others that may simply being seeing it as entertainment. 

Another concern I have with virtual worlds and avatars, is that some more vulnerable people may forget that it is in fact just virtual and may mistake it for reality.  After creating my avatar and observing my students in their virtual world, I found that some used language that I was shocked to “hear” come out of their mouth and the clothes they dressed their avatar in was far from what I would ever see them wearing at school.  Another concern was that they wouldn’t have any idea who they were interacting with but would share personal, and potentially harmful information with these complete strangers.  All of the Internet safety discussions I have had with my students seemed to “fly out the window” when they were in these virtual worlds—that became their life, their reality, for the time and to me that is scary. 

In the article, How Second Life Affects Real Life (2008) from Time Magazine, it brings up the same information that I discussed earlier about how an individual can create an avatar to be anybody they want to be.  The article talks about how an individual created an avatar to be much better looking and cool than he is actually portrayed in real life.  He is able to be more outgoing in this virtual world making it so more people like the individual and so people want to “hang with the avatar”. 

References:

Dell, Kristina (2008, May).  How Second Life Affects Real Life.  Retrieved July 22, 2012 at

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1739601,00.html

Module 3 Blog Comments:

Tawana and Laura

Module 3:  Rhymes of History Technology

The cell phone was first introduced back in the 1940's to the military and some business people but was not commonly used with the general public.  As the years advanced so did the use of the cellular phone.  By the 60's and 70's more business people were using them.   Once the 90's came, more common people were using them but they were so bulky and they were restricted to more of using only in your car.  As technology advanced so did the use of cellular phones and their capabilites.  Today, you can't walk in public without seeing the majority of people with a cellular phone in their hand, up to their ear, texting or searching the Internet.  Cell phones and their abilities have come a long way since the 1940's--majority of individuals having them versuses the traditiaonl land lines.  People are all about convienance and cellular service has provided the people the convienance they desire. 



http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7432915/ns/technology_and_science-wireless/t/first-cell-phone-true-brick/  Retrieved July 4, 2012.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_mobile_phones  Retrieved July 4, 2012.