The meeting after the party:

7/30/2009 10:00pm Hawaii Time



Sam invited us to join the meeting to discuss few topics regarding to the event. 
For the meeting, Sam used "conference call"  


Here are the topics we covered today:


impressions of the event


issued arouse from the event


future possibilities

I. Impression of the event:


thanks


good fun


several people responded to say how much they enjoyed the event


nice island


two people from 2B3D.com came and tried to issue some form of certificate (paid to be a real specialist in SL?). This was turned out to be a company which was just started by a professor.


there were two people from outsied of UH sysyem (outsider who were recognized by Sam and Adra). One of them is a professional photographer (I think I might have seen her too after the event). They also said it was an wonderful event.


No negative comments have been recognized.


The party was opened for public so anybody could come but the place was set to only UH member cpuld Build.


Some of the librarian tried to make it to the event


island is now in public. (UH can build?)


A program from UH West Oahu is interested in setting a booth somewhere in a courtyard. - more partners and more events




II. Issues arouse from the event. (What we could do differently?)


voice/audio issues: Sam and Adra had to use them at the same time and interupted with each other. (I found out the music was from the Youtube).
group adudio/ group IM will be a solution (this would allow provate chat) 


needs for regular meeting


III. Future Events


Sam feels like he was very occupied during the event and did not have the time to mingle
- in terms of type of events


tour


workshops and mixing events


instructional pracitices


less formal = workshop


make events more regularly and frequently so that people expect something and more opportunity for them to learn and explore


same time every week


student project presentation 


IV. Other things came up during the meeting
- Instructors view


Adra said that the instructors still feel isolated. Make it easier for other instructors.


share knowledge and structure


collaborate with others (instructional things)


demand for small workshops: not everyone could attend the whole class. 


- orientations (around 20 ppl) but she does not get to know who they are, which can be the beauty of SL, people can expose themselves without actually exposing their identity.
 


official website to organize and share (link to flikr, SL related course websites, etc). Also it is a good way to promote UH SL community.


promote the success of the event


CIS news letter


UH system


Ning site? (like Flikr so people can leave comments on the picture. great way of receiving feedbacks) 


My thoughts after the meeting:

Sam pointed out the needs of greeting. I like the idea and I think Adra and Amanda were encouraging others to come to the dance floor. I'm a shy person and 
I always like to have someone to push my shoulder to join the group. The beauty of SL is that you have the freedom to put yourself out there and explore without showing your identity. 
But at the same time, people could take advantage of that and act cruel or ignorant to others. I think the virtual world can help you to truly express yourself but there are pros and cons to such a medium. I have met people that make me feel uncomfortable and I always have been careful with who I talk to. I cannot tell what kind of people they are by just hearing the greeting. The virtual world limits people’s senses (e.g. you cannot make eye contact or physically feel one another). That is why I care about tiny signs and what kind of comments people make. I am not a strong communicator with chatting so I have my ups and downs talking with other residents.

I think when I attend big events; I see different patterns of communications and self-appeals in SL. You could simply stand and listen to presentations and 
be part of it, but I think those people who actively leave comments, I consider those kind of actions more professionals. 
As Amanda mentioned, if you are a newbie, they are too caught up with their needs and immediate help and they do not have the time to fully enjoy what is going on. 
Every resident has to go through the process of transforming from newbie to a well rounded regular avatar. I have visited a couple of public events (not too many of 
parties) yet I am still figuring out the patterns or communication. For example, if you go to the Librarian event, majority of the people are from the same group, Librarian. 
They are the most welcoming people but I still feel uncomfortable and do not know what to say. I left events or parties for the fact that it made me uncomfortable. Even the UH events, if Monile was not there I felt very uncomfortable and did not know what to do during the party. I think that the importance of the activities is to create a comfortable space and time to feel part of it. Events can help people occupy themselves with uncertain feelings (e.g. whether you feel part of it or not). I think that being there and participating in activities can also give people a chance to make social connections with other participants. I think residents who have experiences with events know that. For example, Adra, Becca and Amanda kept encouraging people to join the dance floor. They were helping and reaching out people to join the group. I think if I have the chance to be the organizer, welcoming people would be my first priority.

Library Event – The Picnic Month

My task for the event was to create poster/sign for the theme, Sports. Adra will put a notecard, which will give you a link to the sports collection in AVL. Earlier today she showed me couple of other picnics in the AVL area and I got inspired by the beautiful and creative decorations! In order to make the sign, I needed to have a poster or panel, which I can upload out the theme picture (UH Wahine Volleball texture, which was given by Adra) so I searched for them for about one hour and surprisingly, I could not find any good blank posters or the panels. I thought it would be easy to find them since there are uncountable displays in SL…. Maybe I was looking in all the wrong places. I decided to go back to the LIS Student Union and tried to see if any of the signs (created by Adra) are able to copy. My gut instinct was right! Thanks to Adra for making mostly anything copy-able. I put some words on the texture (done by Photoshop!) and bulk uploaded for L$10. First, rezzed the poster/panel, then select Edit by right-clicking it. Go to the Texture tab and click on the window, which says Texture (you will see previous pictures that the poster/panel was already had). Finally, change the Texture to whatever you want from your inventory (this case I selected the one I uploaded earlier). I made another logo with picture of volleyball and some words. Here are pictures of my completed signs!

This month is a picnic month. The librarians are hosting a picnic for the public so that they can explore more about the library island in SL. Each place in the Library island have a theme (e.g. LIS Student Union = Sports). The themes are coming from the AVL library collections. All the picnic places will be offering a notecard or link that correspond to their theme in the AVL collections. When you teleport to the AVL, there are various panels/signs that you can touch, then it gives you information, which then connects to the World Wide Web.

Here, you can follow the steps with some pictures:

1. This is a volleyball area that is located right in front of LIS Student Union. My signs will probably post by the court. Then, you can click the sign to get the notecard.

2. After receiving the notecard, there will be a link, which will take you the sports collection in AVL. The sports collection area will look like the picture below.

3. When you teleport to the sports collection, you will see bunch of blue signs, which has different sports names. I touched the Water sports, then it took me to the Web, which has list of the links to different water sports.

Here are some of the picnic places I found:

The Peace Collection

The Romance Collection

The Western Collection

One of my favorite activities in Second Life is treasure hunting. The one I did recently was to find watermelons that are hidden in different sims. When you open the first watermelon, you will get the first prize and then it will teleport you to the second sim, which has another watermelon, which has the second prize and it will teleport to the third sim. I think the creator of the treasure hunt is very clever for promoting different places while people can have fun. I saw many residents participating in this event (even though some of the prizes were not valuable). What I am trying to say here is that the Librarians are offering a fun learning (they can do two things in one time!). Maybe each picnic section can have a small freebie gift… but then sometimes I feel like I am materialistic. I tend to not participate if there aren’t any prizes available (when I do fun activities on my free time).

If you would like to know more about AVL (Alliance Virtual Library), here is the website you can check out about their various events and updates: http://infoisland.org/

Self-witnessing report:

These are problems I had while creating the sign for the LIS Student Union area. Before I began the task, I felt highly confident about my skills and knew that I could finish it with in 40 minutes. But, it turns out that my expectations for myself was wrong. First, my design needed some improvement. Second, I had trouble putting two posters into one. Third, I did not have the script to put LM inside of my sign. Forth, people can only see my slide from one side. I just listed the problems as a summary, but I will explain my struggle in more detail:

1. Task: Making a sign for LIS Student Union for the picnic month. First, I have to use a texture from UH Manoa athletics’ site. I decided to use Photoshop to add some words onto the picture.

2. Specific Problem: How do I cut off the bottom area to have a blank space for my description.

3. Type: Urgent/Persistent

4. Emotions while trying to solve the problem:

a. Puzzled – 8

b. Frustrated – 8

c. Annoyed – 8

d. Irritated – 8

5. How long it took to solve the problem: about 10 minutes. I just needed to try out different icons, which located left side of the photo shop screen (there are numbers of things you can do to your photo and each of the options is shown in a small icon, which is hard to tell what it does).

6. Emotions when the problem was solved: I learned the photo shop in my introductory ICS program so I am supposed to know well about it, yet if you do not use it for a while, you forget. I felt relieved but I was disappointed at myself.

a. Relief – 9

b. Hopeful for the future – 9

c. Boost my self-confidence – 10

d. Urgent feeling to learn more about the computer tech. – 10

1. Task 1: Decorating the Info Island LIS Student Union area for the picnic month.

2. Specific Problem: Combining multiple objects into one object.

3. Type: Persistent

4. Emotions while trying to solve the problem:

a. Puzzled – 8

b. Frustrated – 9

c. Annoyed – 7

d. Hopeful of success – 9

e. Feeling helpless – 5

f. Irritated – 8

g. Losing patient – 7

5. How long it took to solve the problem: It took me about 20 minutes. I had to look it up on the web and took me for a while to find the right information. There were several relevant information in which I found, I had to watch a few videos to figure out if there was a solution to my problem.

6. Emotions when the problem was solved: I felt really good when I finally able to put two posters together to create one big sign. However, it gave me new problems so I had mixed emotions of accomplishments and failures.

a. Relief – 8

b. Annoyed myself for taking so long to figure out the problem – 10

c. Boost in my self-confidence – 9

d. Hopeful about the future – 9

1. Task: I need to put LM (Land Mark) in my sign, so the visitors are able to teleport to the Sports collection in AVL by touching my sign.

2. Specific Problem: How do I add LM in my sign?

3. Type: Urgent

4. Emotions while trying to solve the problem:

a. Puzzled – 9

b. Expected to face the problem – 10

c. Frustrated – 8

d. Annoyed – 7

e. Irritated – 6

f. Trying to stay positive toward the situation – 9

5. How long it took to solve the problem: Adra put the LM before I figure out the problem. I decided to see how other Librarians added their LM into their signs. I visited the Romance Collection and saw it right-clicking the sign. I found out that I need special script to add LM into the sign.

6. Emotions when the problem was solved: I felt very unprofessional. Because Adra beat me to solve the problem. I should have IM her right after I found the solution (that it requires special script). But instead, I was looking for the script so that I could solve it for myself.

a. Unsure to my solution – 9

b. Relief – 9

c. Satisfied with the fixing process – 3

d. Boost in my self-confidence – 3

7. Comment: Sometimes it is hard to find the solutions right away and I feel hesitant to ask for help. But I came to the conclusion that as for now, I need to report my problems right away to the owner or the professor that I am working with. Especially summer is short and everything goes by so quick, so I need to find the solutions just as fast as time goes by.

1. Task: Creating the sign for the LIS Student Union area for the picnic month

2. Specific Problem: I want to make the sign that the visitors can see it from both sides. I decided to add a wood textured posted behind the sign I made. Because I thought that just putting the poster does not match with the background of the place and picnic theme. When I added the wood textured poster and my sign together, I was blocking the sign from being able to watch it from both front and backside.

3. Type: Persistent

4. Emotions while trying to fix the problem:

a. Irritated – 9

b. Annoyed – 8

c. Perfections that had an interference with my skill – 10

d. Difficulty – 10

5. How long it took to solve the problem – 15 to 20 minutes.

6. Emotions while trying to fix the problem: I was not sure if I was right to consider this problem as problem. When I added same slide to the back, my problem was simple solved. I had trouble connecting the signs but I already figured out how to link them all together and produce one sign so it was not too bad. I thought it required a lot of patient to make the sign sizes to be exact same and locate them to be exact locations. After I finished fixing my sign, I noticed that I could have simply copied the original sign and put them together. But, either way, it required some time to fix the sign. I am glad that now the visitors can see the sign from both sides.

a. Relief – 10

b. Boost in my self-confidence – 9

c. Able to solve the problem differently in the future – 9

I didn’t think that I would face so many problems while creating the sign. Especially I did not have the permission to build in the Info Island, so I needed to build it in a different area and move it to the required area for the sign. My emotions have changed from before trying to make the sign and after completion of the sign: Unexpected difficulty to not completely satisfied. I am not completely satisfied with my sign. I visited other picnic areas and saw creative signs and compared myself to others. I thought I need to know more places that offered different decorations and posters so I can be more creative and make better signs in the future.

Here are the pictures of some of the decorations I put:

I noticed that most of the picnic places keep their decorations simple, but also creative and nice. There are many people who enjoyed the picnic and BBQ in Hawaii so it was easy to picture what would be match with the theme of picnic and sports. Every place has a small blanket so even the themes are different, it is easy for people to notice the picnic month. I decided to change the letter color from orange to blue. It is because orange is hard to see, but also when you visit the sports collection in AVL, the place is coordinated with color of blue so I wanted to add a small connection between my sign and the AVL Sports Collection area.

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