I don’t often post ‘funnies’, but this tickled my fancy, having thought and written about gaming, virtual worlds, transparency of technology and “Generation C” a lot. I admit, it made me laugh out loud.
Filed under: musings
This is entirely anecdotal and a musing, and one at that, for which I have no answer. A deaf friend of mine (from my home country Germany) visited me this week. Since we met online – as so many do these days – via shard interests and the fact she read my texts (I do enjoy calling my creations, no matter of what kind, merely ‘texts’) and began discussing them with me, we got to chatting – via writing as well, since I do not know sign language – about reading. She told me that she knows hardly any deaf person who ever reads, and she knows many, because the deaf community is apparently quite close-knit.
I wondered why, since reading obviously does not require hearing (and she is an extremely fast and avid reader) and was wondering then, what it is like to read for everyone. I, for example, ’speak’ the words to me in my mind. I hear them, ‘hear’ the sentences and hear the language. Obviously, she wouldn’t, but it is hard to imagine something that is entirely out of our experience – for both of us. Apparently she ’sees’ the words. Images of the words. Intriguing.
Anyway, she then went on to explain that many deaf people have difficulties gaining a large vocabulary, something I never thought about. Of course not, we never manage to think beyond our own experience unless we get the incentive to do so.
This got me to thinking what happens during reading, apart from the meaning-making and the constant reflection in the light of context. And, secondly, while I have been wondering if a tool such as Second Life was useful for communication of all sorts – since deafness is a communication problem, not a physical disability (in the words of my friend) if I was actually wrong, because of it being text based. And if text is far less easily accessible as I thought … then, unless avatars are able to sign, we are back at square one.
Apologies for the slight ramblings, but I have been intrigued by this and have been trying to come to any answers. Unsuccessfully.
Following up from my last post and the thoughts regarding avatars, identity and (possible) narrative in communication, I was summing up on another place and in another life, the excellent keynote by Dr Donald Smith at the NILE 2008 conference.
As an author – in another life – I am blessed to be able to gain so much feedback on the texts that I create, both analogue and digital. feedback, which has often made me wonder who owns the text? Has the reader read the same text that I created? Do we even share the same world, still?
Especially in a digital medium the ownership is becoming increasingly versatile. After all, any author who has encountered readers’ attempts to influence the text and to impose their own meaning onto it, will realise that what had once been perceived as “theirs” at the moment of creation is not only “the others’” through meaning-making during the process of writing – and discussing – but takes on a far more potent and demanding slant.
However, the question that was raised during the keynote was:
What is most important in a story? Openness/Open-endedness of meaning!
What a story needs is for a reader to find shared communication, different meaning, imagining, interpreting, remaking. To preconfigure, preset, and thus limit function and meaning of a story, means that it does not engage participants (readers) on all fronts and narrows down the narrative. Which leads to the most fascinating question of: what happens when people read?
- readers are following the unfolding story characters, plot, etc.
- readers are reflecting continuously on relationships between all the elements in the story and their own experience
- parallel processes generate emotional charge and overall response
Followed on from this is reflection, so that follow & reflect = catharsis
Those three steps above continuously feed off each other, and in many ways this means that there is less distinction between a biography and a novel, for example, than what one might think. Fiction and non-fiction? The processes are still the same.
Storytelling acts on many levels of identity and meaning, and each story is a shared venture – and this is the source of its power and its mystery.
Filed under: games, identity, research, second life, students, virtual worlds | Tags: narratives, research questions
Oh yes, all of those and more.
I’ve been to two days of the most excellent NILE conference, organised by Judy Robertson, and while listening to the brilliant keynote Looms for Learning by Dr. Donald Smith I had a sudden thought. This thought bridged the gap between what I have been observing so far in the Second Life projects, what I have been pondering, the research questions so far and what I was not sure about – like the vague shapes of the Edinburgh rooftops emerging slowly our of the Haar.
Having observed the school kids in the labs, which showed a significant difference in avatar creation and modification, I started to wonder if there might be a narrative going on that I had not taking into consideration so far. What do I mean with this?
Well, what if a user (i.e. the future 1st year student) does not see their avatar in SL as an extension of their self a la “sock puppet” but as a character, might this not impact on how they act in-world? And, consequently, might this not have an impact on any in-world collaboration, group work, group interaction? Might there be a narrative going on, which sees a story unfolding rather than what we have assumed so far, in that the student interacts through the medium of the avatar, without a separation of identity?
Furthermore, if there are arguments for such a hypothesis, and if I encounter data that speaks for this, then perhaps this might be influenced by a growing saturation of computer games?
- are students themselves in SL via their avatars or are their narrating their selves?
- is there an added, hidden, narrative dimension we have not recognised yet?
These thoughts have formed the shape of my initial questionnaire, which will revisit last year’s and which will focus on laying the foundations for finding answers to these thoughts.
I am really rather excited, even though – or maybe because – I am still lost somewhat in the mist.
The University of Leicester is working on a very interesting sounding project, funded by JISC. (I would like to see a new/different institution receive money from JISC for some freshness, but that’s beside the point).
It is called MOOSE and I have to say their website design is delightful. It says for the project:
MOOSE investigates the scaffolding and processes needed to enable groups of students from HE environments to establish their socialisation and engagement for more productive information and knowledge exchange and learning through the medium of online 3-D Multi User Virtual Environments using Second Life.
I am very interesting in how the project pans out and of course its findings, and will visit Leicester’s “Media Zoo” island shortly. More on the project once I have familiarised myself further with it.
Aims of the project:
- Understanding immersion for in-world socialization and learning in groups;
- Designing for useful Second Life events;
- Role of facilitation in Second Life;
- Institutional and disciplinary differences in the use of Second Life for group learning. [italics mine]
Very much up my alley, indeed.
