Digitally Me in 1, 2, 3

Right now, I think I’m going to go with Dr. Schirmer’s suggestion of a more personal, focused presentation of the self through a single aspect. In this case, I think I’m going to expand on an aspect of myself first considered in the Tech AutoBios we all composed at the beginning of the term: a Digital Naturalized Citizen.

Background

In response to our earlier discussions about Mark Prensky’s Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants article, I conceived of a third class: Digital Naturalized. From my own paper: “The naturalized citizen has so fully assimilated into the host culture as to be nearly the same as a native. Only the inescapable fact that the naturalized was once something else separates them from the native, and I believe this concept includes me. The time I wasn’t on the edge of digital progression was brief in my personal history. Even though I didn’t begin life as a digital native, I count myself as far more assimilated than an immigrant, and as such could embody the new term.”

Execution

At this point, I believe I’m going to divide my identity up into three stages – the life I began that was wholly not digital. The second stage will be more robust, focusing on my period of immigration. Finally, I’ll finish as the naturalized, explaining my digital life here and now. My intention is to find three separate services to portray the different Digital Rogers. Being that I am generally pro-integration of online identities, I usually try not to have too many digital selves out there, preferring to keep to the one, whole story. For the purposes of this project, however, I will likely create entirely separate accounts/profiles as needed. Seeing as I intend to capture a freezeframe of my life at different points, a living online idenity would just confuse things.

Any thoughts from readers? Anything I should consider?

A Second Helping of Second Life

So, like mentioned in class, let’s talk Ideal vs. Reality:

The Ideal

As I’ve heard it described and have read, the assets that SL brings to pedagogy seem to be focused mostly on accessibility. Ideally speaking, SL lets a student from half a world away have the same experience as a student sitting in their dorm room on campus, if the class is taught within second life. Infrastructure exists to facilitate reasonably educative environments, such as projectors with slide shows, lecture venues, and even large-scale object manipulation for the purpose of displays.

Additionally, Second Life allows, at least theoretically, for robust object creation, limited only by how far the creators are willing to go. A history course could, for example, use dozens of small models on a miniature ocean, timed to move independently in set patterns to explain fleet movements in the Pacific in World War II. Or you could visit a recreation of the Apollo 11 landing site (someplace I’ve been).

The ultimate goal of Pedagogy in SL is to attempt engagement on a level of technological sophistication. I believe what must fundamentally be the ideal is that this is the precursor to future digital environments, so get on board now. Even if it’s only half-realized now, being here now will mean better things later.

The Reality

Tumbleweeds. A lot of tumble weeds.

As we saw in class, and I hope some of you might yet get to experience for yourselves, there’s a lot left to be desired in a professional and pedagogical sense in SL.

Most desirable? People. I had thought I would go through several other virtual campuses in SL, showing everyone what they look like, but the truth is, you saw all you needed to see at Wolverine Island. Every one of the schools I went to was a ghost town, with myself the only inhabitant. It was almost a post-apocalyptic feeling, as if I woke up to find the world intact, but all the inhabitants gone. The nice seating areas on Wolverine Island for the classes that don’t seem to be held made me feel very lonely – the exact opposite of what should be the goal of as socially derived of an environment as SL should be. This extended to a handful of other sites I went to in SL – museums, public art spaces, colleges, municipalities, memorials – all of them empty.

The fact of the matter is that the people are the only real component missing in-world, if you strip away the mundane technical issues, at least in the not strictly-social realm. Without fellow digital denizens, your presence there is just a waste of time.

I’d be interested to read in other blog posts what else strikes people about Second Life, mostly on a professional/pedagogical sense. I came out pretty strong in class against my own technology I’d Facilitated. I’d love to see someone else take up the gauntlet and show me I’m being too hasty.

Admittedly, the night clearly wasn’t a total wash. When else can you say “I saw Daffy Duck bumping and grinding Bugs Bunny in class tonight” other than where Second Life is concerned?