Your assignment is to build a chair. Try to include at least one script and one texture. Be sure you put some personality into your chair.

When you are finished, take a photo of your avatar sitting in its chair, post the photo to Flickr, and blog about your experience.

Tonight, you should begin to interact with the citizens of SL. Meet some people; get comfortable chatting. When you have met someone (or multiple someones) that you feel comfortable talking with, do an informal interview.

First, explain that you are a student and ask them if you can use their name for an interview on your blog. Be sure you have their permission! Take a snapshot of her/him.

Next, ask the avatar about their personal appearance and how and why they chose that look. What does her/his appearance say? What story does it tell about their avatar’s personality? What role are they playing?

Ask them if they have any tips on improving your look. Then, set about doing just that.

Consider your look carefully. What does your avatar’s appearance tell about it? That is: what story do you wish to portray, and how are you going about it with your appearance? Get new clothes. Work with textures; manipulate your appearance. What sort of reactions are you hoping to get? How will you be successful.

When finished: when you are happy with your avatar’s look, take a photo. Upload that photo to Flickr, then link it to a blog entry. Write your avatar’s story. That is, discuss what you have done about appearance and what you have learned about Second Life. You might also try to relate this exercise to the reading we have done so far in class.

(Adopted from a suggestion by Megan S. Conklin in “101 Uses for Second Life in the College Classroom.”)

During the TechArt Scavenger Hunt, players will collect images and information to prove where they have been in SL. Each player will compile what they have collected in notecard form and return the notecard to Jhary Jatho.

Time Limit

Starts: Thursday, 10/25 @ 8:15 PM EST
Ends: Monday, 10/29 @ 11:59 PM EST
Winners will be announced in class on Tuesday.

Item Needed to Play

$50L needed for pictures. If you don’t have the money, ask your professor.

How to Win

Be the first turn in a notecard containing all the correct information.

Prizes

This assignment will be evaluated on a ten-point scale. The first to complete the scavenger hunt with all the correct answers will be awarded the 10; second a 9; and so on.

Welcome to the TechArt SL Scavenger Hunt!

RULES

• Be honest no sharing information.
• Use what you know about navigating in SL to find what you are looking for.
• If you get stuck or don’t understand what I’m asking you to do feel free to IM Jhary. I will give you a hint but not the answer.
• All entries must be submitted in notecard form with all info contained in a notecard and numbered.
• You may start anywhere but keep the notecard numbers in the same order.
• Be sure to name the notecard with “your name”- scavenger hunt.

Tips

PLACING PICTURES/LANDMARKS/NOTECARDS INSIDE A NOTECARD

• Moving pictures to your notecard: open your note card so you can read it. Open your inventory and drag the picture onto the open notecard it should attach itself.
• Moving Landmarks to the notecard: Open same as above, find the landmark in the Landmarks folder and drag it into the notecard.
• Moving Notecards into notecards: Open the scavenger hunt notecard find the notecard you want to transfer into the other notecard but do not open this one. Drag it onto the open notecard. It should work just like the Pic and LMs did.

REVIEW ON PHOTO TAKING

• When the Snapshot previewer comes up be sure the “upload a snapshot” is checked. This will put it in your inventory under pictures. If you save to hard drive you will have to upload it back into SL which wil place it in the textures folder.
• Always rename your photos or you will have bunch that just say snapshot. You rename them by finding them in your inventory right click/rename.

The Hunt Starts Here

1. Go to Dell City and ride the tram over to the giant computer you can walk into. Take a picture of yourself sitting on the RAM chip inside the computer. Add the picture to a note card. See how above in the tips section of this note card.
2. Take a trip to Dublin Ireland. Relax a spell in Dublin’s popular pub the Blarney Stone. When you find the Blarney Stone go inside and make a landmark for it. Add this Land mark to your note card the same way you added the photo. Be sure you have a Guinness. (Hint to make a Landmark (LM) look for a way to do it under “World”.)
3. Get creative and wander The Second Life Louvre Museum. There are lots of ineresting works of art you may want to look at in the future but look for the work that shows the “Evolution of Prim Man.” Take your picture standing beside the prim man at the end of this art work.
4. Go back to our tech roots and check out the SL Computer History Museum. It is still a work in progress but interesting to take a look at. Find Illiac I find out when this machine was retired and put the date in the note card under number 4.
5. Go to Eduisland II and take a tour of the island. Take a picture of the active volcano from the tour cart and include it in your notecard.
6. Time to travel the world some more. We’re off to Southeast Asia to the Malay History Museum. Find the welcome sign and get a note card. The card will contain an image of Fort Malaya from overhead; copy this image to #6 on your notecard. If you don’t take the tour now be sure too it’s great for history buffs. Clicking most images and objects will give you a note card of information and history.
7. Find the Statue of Liberty on your own and give me the coordinates (X, Y, Z) of where it is located. Write these in the note card.
8. Off to the islands. Parrot island has many interesting hideaways. When you land, use the neon green sign to teleport you to the Parrot Island Recreational Area. Take a free jet ski ride around the island during the day, or find the statue from Easter Island if it’s night. Take a picture of yourself on the jet ski or posing by the statue. Add this picture to the note card.
9. Time to play ball. Find some free popcorn and take your picture eating it at homeplate at Yankee Stadium. Add this picture to your notecard.
10. Last stop a role playing game much like Diablo and everquest built into SL. Welcome to DarkLife. Look around. Find the information board. What is the URL for the Darklife game blog? Be sure to check this place out even if you don’t purchase the items to play.

(Based on a Scavenger Hunt by Bcreative Wilde)

• Rebecca Edwards (Flickr | YouTube | Becca Akroyd)
• Christine French (Flickr | YouTube | Serene Seesaw)
• Aisling Ireland (Flickr | YouTube | Saraide Indigo)
• Kara Kilgore (Flickr | YouTube | Annagram Gregan)
• Dominique Massey (Flickr | YouTube | Dominique Sosa)
• Will Stanley (Flickr | YouTube | guitars125 Stransky)

Convergence Culture

the flow of content across multiple media platforms, the cooperation between multiple media industries, and the migratory behavior of media audiences who will go almost anywhere in search of the kinds of entertainment experiences they want. (2)

As we have seen, Jenkins emphasizes participation, community, and entertainment as key components of the age of new-media-influenced cultural artifacts.

Keeping Jenkins’ emphasis in mind for this assignment, pick one of the two options below as the focus for the project. We must have a consensus as a class as to which option we will all undertake, but you may work on your own or as a group in completing it.

Goals for this SL Assignment

1. To apply what you have learned this semester about convergence culture, interactive storytelling, narrativism, and ludology to your work in SL
2. To illustrate how digital technology is becoming an integral component of creative expression
3. To examine the convergence of narrative and agency in an evolving immersive environment
4. To demonstrate that Second Life is a viable platform for teaching and learning
5. To invent creative ways of telling stories using Second Life as the central medium
6. To use current theories of ludology and narrativism in imagining a viable platform for interactive storytelling

Option 1

Create an interactive story that incorporates Second Life as the major component of the story using several of the tools and resources that are available to you, like web sites, software, and equipment. You should have at least two parts of this exercise: a theoretical component and a illustrative one.

The former should be a blog entry that illustrates the theory behind your interactive story; be sure you use at least three of the major theorists (more is better) we read this semester, including Jenkins. The latter component should be your actual working narrative.

This option will require you to do some research about your second component: what options for creative narrative expression are available to you using SL, for example machinima? This option can cover any aspect of the theory we have read this semester.

Option 2

Explore Second Life and report on how professional entertainers (artists, storytellers, filmmakers, designers, etc.) are bringing their work into SL and how participating in SL is influencing their work. In a series of wiki entries that examine at least five different cases, you should discuss what you have learned, apply it to the theory we have been studying, and illustrate your points with photos and links for user exploration.

You may examine any aspect of convergence culture within SL that you’d like. For example, explore how narratives of politics, business, education, religion, art, design, journalism, science, etc. being brought into Second Life. What does their presence in the virtual world signify for real life? How are these efforts expanding human creativity and interaction? How is SL influencing culture?

Consider this option as more of a traditional research project with an aim toward promoting convergence culture. Your final project should be presented on a wiki. I’d recommend Wikispaces.

Calendar

11/13: Proposal due: outline what you aim to do for this project, including a list of references
11/15: In-class time to work (meet on SL for the whole class)
11/22: Off for Turkey Day, so no class time this week for your project
11/29: In-class time to work (meet on SL for the whole class)
12/4: Some class time for project
12/6: Project Due