Tuesday, May 12, 2009

That's It







This class was pretty cool. I think if I had a more updated computer I would have enjoyed it more. SL is a great place to hold online classes, if you meet in the right places. This class defiantly got me more computer savvy and taught me the basics of computer graphics and imaging. I had a great time with Tim, Ges and Stew and Aaron thanks or your patience with me and for all the time and effort. Thanks again to everyone and good luck. Hope to see you guys down the road some where.

Meet and Greet




It was pretty easy meeting people in SL. Everyone I talked to was pretty friendly and had no problem talking to me. I was laughing at myself because if someone outside our class tried to talk to me on SL, I'd immediately assume their creepiness, but here I was trying to talk to people I'd never met before and it was just the opposite. The shoe on the other foot I guess.

Virtual Hallucination






The VH was a weird experience. When I first heard the voices I thought there was something wrong with the settings or there was someone around me trying to talk to me. It took me a second to figure out it was the Hallucination. The repetitive suicidal sayings, over and over again in my headset began to get creep when there was more then one going at a time. Some of the things in the building itself were weird like the floor disappearing and re-appearing. The tour made me realize being a schizophrenic isn't a joke really.

FPS




I've alays been a fan o FPS games. I usually lean more towards the more realistic shooters like Medal of Honor and Call of Duty so I figured I'd give the furturistic side of FPS a try. Halo was one of the only ones I knew of so I figure I'd give it a shot. After taking some time to get used to the feel of the game and getting used to how different it was from Call of Duty I began to enjoy it. It's a totally different feel when your playing but its a cool 2nd genre of FPS.

Sunday, March 29, 2009

Class 03/22/09

Spore



Downloading Spore was a big problem for both of the computers I have access to. My laptop gave me and error message every time I tried to open the program and my family's desktop kept telling me to install the latest version of DirectX even though I already had the most recent version. I was forced to go use the town library computers which allowed me to create my creatures, but I couldn't post any of the snapshots for my blog here as these computers had restrictions on them that for some reason didn't allow it. At least I got the idea of it though.

Sunday, March 22, 2009

3/15/09



We met in second life and were talking about first person shooters and the progression of video games over the last decade. We were then told to go and play the World of Warcraft demo and get used to playing in a virtual world. Thanks to TimR for letting me borrow the photo above.

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Land of Lincoln: Dress Up



Ahh yes, ImmersiveEducationMatt Blaylock in a dress. My spiked hair adds a nice touch. Thank again Aaron.

Land of Lincoln: Dress Up



Land of Lincoln has a pretty cool feature in SL. It offers free wardrobes for its visitors so that they may be more in tune with Lincoln's era. Prof. Walsh showed us how to add the clothes to our inventory and put them on our avatar. Here I am in a tux.

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Immersive Education





This is the interview between Aaron Walsh and Russ Castronova. Mr. Walsh talks about everything from the virtual reality "worlds" and video games to the new Web 2.0 and other "media infrastructures." On of the major things he talks about is the new way teachers can get through to their students from anywhere at anytime through the Web 2.0 and other virtual worlds, which in return helps the teacher by freeing up time as well as the students as they are more comfortable in virtual worlds. The 4s principal come into play with this new technology. The future of teaching seems to be in 3d technology based forums, like Second life and other commonly used virtual worlds as they are easier for both parties, the students and the teachers.

Bradburyvill



Bradburyvill looks like a fun place to visit. The ferris wheel has always been a favorite ride of mine at the carnival. The carousal as well. The big red tent reminded me of Barnum and Bailey; a famous traveling circus.

Land of Lincoln



Lincoln was a great president and defiantly deserves his own SL land. Here I am looking at a famous photo of President Lincoln outside the Lincoln Memorial. I believe this photo is hung somewhere inside the White House.

Sunday, January 25, 2009