Discuss the following statement with approximately 1500 words. You should not use more than 2000 words.
‘Second Life will be the future of communications’
PLAGIARISM WARNING ! – Assignments should not be copied in part or in whole from any other source, except for any marked up quotations, that clearly distinguish what has been quoted from your own work. All references used must be given, and the specific page number used should also be given for any direct quotations, which should be in inverted commas. Students found copying from the internet or other sources will get zero marks and may be excluded from the university.
ASSIGNMENT GUIDE:
Your written report will
include some brief description of the Second Life (Definition, benefits,
limitations, etc) and you can apply these descriptions in one of your chosen
company (e.g. IBM, Open University, etc).
Your report may
take the form of a general discussion of the communications inside the
organizations and the use of Second Life for communications with your
expectations of the future communications’ channels.
Your discussion
may include your analysis of some of the following:
[a] The purposes of the effective communications
inside the organizations. You should make clear how the Second Life is intended
to achieve these objectives.
[b] Alternative strategies (or communications’
channel) the company could have pursued to achieve similar aims,
using other social and non-social channels.
[c] How use of communications has changed over time
e.g. in nature and size of the activities undertaken, with some discussion on why these might
have occurred.
[d] The current use of the Second Life in organizations.
[e] Ex-post outcomes.
[f] You may compare the use of Second Life by your
chosen company with other companies, possibly in the same industry e.g. education or in
related industries.
[g] Register in the Second Life and practice the
communications.
The above is not
intended to be definitive / exhaustive but offers some guidance on issues you
may address in your discussion.
Your discussion should avoid quoting long passages
taken directly from company reports and other relevant researches.
ASSIGNMENT AIMS /
LEARNING OUTCOMES.
The learning
outcomes that this coursework is intended to assess are:
[a] Your appreciation of the
nature, characteristics and potential uses of Second Life in
communications.
[b] Your understanding of how
use of social websites affects and is affected by the
business strategies of the companies using them.
Reading: Please
read
http://docsdrive.com/pdfs/ansinet/itj/2011/499-510.pdf
Written Work
Marking Scheme
Marks are awarded
based on the overall quality of the work, the followings works as a guideline
of the marking:
>= 85%
Demonstrate
comprehensive understanding of the topic.
The topic is
covered and presented very well.
Evidence of great
efforts on research and study.
Excellent
referencing and literature review.
Clear structure
with strong links between chapters.
Demonstrate clear
understanding of the topic
The topic is well
covered and presented.
Evidence of
extensive efforts on research and study
Extensive
literature considered and analyzed.
Clear, accurate
and consistent referencing.
Clear, well linked
structure.
65-74%
Demonstrate clear
understanding of the topic
The topic is
fairly covered and presented.
Evidence of some
efforts on research and study
Satisfactory range
of literature considered
Clear and accurate
referencing.
Well structured
and clear.
55-64%
Demonstrate
limited understanding of the topic
The topic is
poorly studied and presented.
Evidence of some
efforts on research and study
Some literature
considered
Acceptable
referencing and clear structure
45-54%
Demonstrate few
understanding of the topic
The topic is
poorly studied and presented, with several fallacies.
Lack of efforts and
research conducted
Insufficient
literature considered
Poor presentation
Inconsistent
referencing
<45%
Demonstrate false
understanding of the topic.
The topic is
mistakenly studied and presented, and/or the topic not covered at all.
No evidence of
research conducted and study.
No discussion of
findings.
Inadequate
presentation with inconsistent referencing.
Introduction
about Second Life (SL):
Second Life is an online 3D virtual world developed by
Linden Lab. It provides an environment where users are able to create their own
digital characters (Avatars) and interact with people all over the world.
It allows users or residents to come together to engage in a
range of activities including socializing, attending musical events, playing
games, shopping, running businesses, building, collaborating, attending
meetings and presentations and undertaking training and education (which what
we will discuss through the Open University).
Second Life is an ideal platform for engaging students and
trainers in creating their own learning activities, experiences and
environments. It’s particularly appealing to the gamer generation.
Second Life facilitates collaboration and co-creation and is
a great platform for engaging students in active and experiential learning in
authentic contexts. It encourages social and peer learning.
Second Life is currently being used by a wide range of
educational organizations as a platform for engaging students in learning
across a range of subject areas.
There is a range of educational projects currently running
in Second Life such as Open University (OU) and New Media Consortium (NMC) .
New Media Consortium (NMC) Campus is the largest educational
presence in second life and supports events, classes, demonstrations and art
exhibitions. The NMC Campus has hosted a number of speakers, events and online
conferences and supports more than 20 Sims in second life and a wide range of
projects.
We will explore the educational uses of Second Life through
the Open University (OU).
Brief
Introduction about Open University (OU):
Established in the UK in 1962, the Open University was the
world's first distance learning institution. It still offers courses and adult
education to people everywhere via BBC television, the Internet, and Second
Life. The OU was probably the first
educational institution in the UK to have a presence in Second Life when it
acquired its first region in 2006.
Open
University (OU) and Second Life (SL):
OU opened its Open Life village (island). This step encouraged
OU students and staff to join Second Life and enthusiastically creating and organizing
their environment. Open Life Village is the social island where staff and
students rent houses and gather to chat in public or dance on the village
green.
It produced a guide about second life to support students
and staffs explore it.
OU created several volunteer jobs such as Events officer,
Scripting Guru, Building Guru, Greeter. That encouraged students and staffs to
get involved into the challenge and gave them a sense of greater ownership to
the community.
SL enabled OU students and staffs to communicate, engage and
work together freely. The instructors can demonstrate their ideas in a visual
format to support their teaching style (building learning objects based on
subject topics) and students can get the most benefits and understanding through
Data Visualization e.g, human anatomy,DNA,atoms,solar system,..
OU have started to build its own collection of learning
objects and organize them in an interactive library accessible through SL.
Students and instructors can go to this virtual library and access its virtual
materials and multimedia learning tools.
OU students and staffs can attend meetings and conferences
in real time and can be recorded so the others who missed them can go back and
view them. Students can work in teams from different locations and with other
universities across the globe where they can’t collaborate in real world.
OU uses SL as a role playing device that allows teachers to
create fictional situations where students can assume roles. SL provides a safe
environment where students can take chances, make numerous attempts and fail
without the real world consequences. “Social simulators”
Consider a Spanish language class, for example. Students
meet each other, in what looks like a Mexican marketplace. They assume roles
such as shopkeeper, vendor and customer. In SL, students practice their foreign
language skills by communicating with one another.
OU uses simulations to train medical students. Second Life
simulations for medical purposes appear to be growing rapidly as it facilitates
interaction, teaching and learning.
OU uses SL for playing games that serve the educational
purposes. For example, Each group of students would search different islands to
find items listed by their teacher. Students spend time on various islands
observing, comparing and learning the different cultures. Also, students can
play a knowledge game. Similar to a question and answer game except that
avatars must move to a different location before answering and before the time
runs out.
There are other strategies and communications’ channels that
OU can use for achieving the same objectives. But the most obvious use of SL is
that it combines them in one place.
Here’s a short list that demonstrate SL’s communications and
its similarities of web communities:
Communication
Features
|
|
SL have
|
Other web
communities
|
Real time text chatting-private
|
Instant messaging (Yahoo, MSN, Skype,..)
|
Real time text chatting-group
|
Chat room (Yahoo, MSN, Skype, ..)
|
Delayed time text chatting
|
Email
|
Real time voice
|
VoIP / telephone & conference calling (Skype,..)
|
Real time video/audio stream
|
Video calling (Skype,..)
|
Note card messaging
|
RSS / newsfeeds
|
Ability to create content
|
Forum, wiki, blogs
|
Record activities for later access
|
Podcasting
|
Uploading documents
|
File sharing
|
There are three key benefits to integrating a web
community into Second Life:
Real time collaborative experience: members have the
ability to chat, build, watch videos, listen to audio streams, and see fellow
resident activity taking place around them.
It is very much like being in a physical space together such as a movie
theater, music hall, conference center or living room.
Avatar-driven personalization: members have the
ability to create sophisticated three dimensional avatars. These avatars can be personalized in a
variety of ways including all human attributes as well as the ability to be
non-human avatars. Using the gestures
feature, avatars can express themselves using movement and facial
expressions. Through the use of scripts,
avatars can be made to move, dance, smile and any number of almost infinite
movements. Avatars can even interact
with each other such as hugging and dancing.
Persistent location without geographic limitations:
members have the ability to purchase, build and maintain a persistent physical
location that all members can enjoy. This land is essentially server space that
gives owners a place to build objects and saves them for each time they
return. Second Life also allows free
travel between servers, which means residents can interact with people from all
over the world rather than being restricted to a specific geography or time
zone.
There are some complications for students and
instructors:
Complications for Students: Some students are not
technologically professional and using SL becomes time consuming for them as
they have to know the basics of SL
communications, navigations and avatar customization. Furthermore, SL software
has technological requirements, and some students may not have computers that
meet these requirements.
Complications for Instructors: SL requires time,
expertise and money to develop an excellent learning environment. Moreover,
instructors can face technological problems during their discussions or
lectures that can cause delay on their schedule .
References:
http://secondlife.com/destination/open-universityhttp://www.open.ac.uk/virtualworlds/p3_1.shtml
http://lecs-static-secondlife-com.s3.amazonaws.com/work/SL-Edu-Brochure-010411.pdf
http://educ.queensu.ca/e-services/it/second-life/intro/IntroToSLforEd.pdf
http://sussex.academia.edu/LizThackray/Papers/919417/Resources_and_Skills_for_Teaching_in_Se
cond_Life_developing_a_toolkit_for_use_by_Open_University_Associate_Lecturers_and_others
http://www.open.ac.uk/cetl-workspace/cetlcontent/documents/48845a25f07ab.pdf
http://www.open.ac.uk/cetl-workspace/cetlcontent/documents/496357225a459.pdf
http://www.open.edu/openlearn/education/exploring-teaching-and-learning-real-and-virtual-worlds?track=2aca4c8c55
http://lecs-static-secondlife-com.s3.amazonaws.com/work/SL-Edu-Brochure-010411.pdf
http://previewpsych.org/BPD2.0.pdf
http://morbo.cs.pdx.edu/SecondLifeOfficialGuideCD/Guides%20and%20Resources/Developer%20Re
sources/Extending%20%20Branded%20Web%20Communities%20into%20Second%20Life.doc
http://incubatorisland.com/HTMLobj-101/Adv_disadv.pdf
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