Second Life-3: Friends!!!

Though it is because the course that I play Second Life, but I do want to develop a broader friendship in this role play game.

The first person I talked to is a vampire hunter (or looks like a vampire hunter)
Because we are all on the Beach, meaning that we are all new players of Second Life,
so none of us know what to do. But it is very joyful to chat with them and see what we can control our avatar to do.

We fly and stand on the boat, go into the ocean(no fish or coral there...)
He/She told me he/she is a Mexican thus is not good in English
I said I can't speak Spanish either.
After that, I got transported and lost the connection with him/her.

The second people I talked to was met in the mall.
She has a Russian-like name.
Or maybe English-speaking players have tendency to use И and
щ

Notes on THE INTERNET AS A GLOCAL DISCOURSE ENVIRONMENT

This essay is a commentary itself. Therefore it is relatively easy to understand. 
The main claim of this essay is that Internet serves "as an informal learning environment for English as a second/foreign language; as a discursive space where identities are formed and social relationships are negotiated; and, as a space where the intermingling of the global and the local gives rise to hybrid language varieties."

In perspective of forming an identity,  the author suggests that "it is clear that both texts consider the Internet as a "safe house," structuring alternative spaces for social and consequently discourse participation, where ESL students have more opportunities for freeing writing from the constraints of the traditional classrooms."

Due to the anonymity on the Internet, people can express themselves freely. I believe it does help students and encourage them to talk or use their L2 more. But it has negative effect too. Because of the anonymity, there are also some strange people that may not so friendly to you. It is really easy to be someone you want to be on the Internet. For Second Life, you just choose an avatar you like and you can change your appearance anytime. That's why I think that Internet may not be so safe as they say.

Notes to PLAYING THE VIDEOTEXT: A MEDIA LITERACY PERSPECTIVE ON VIDEO-MEDIATED L2 LISTENING

PLAYING THE VIDEOTEXT: A MEDIA LITERACY PERSPECTIVE ON VIDEO-MEDIATED L2 LISTENING is the article we choose for our first skyping assignment.

It mainly discuss on the influence of videos to L2 learning.
And I think it gives a key point: to have a media literacy and pre-teaching are  essential for online L2 learning.

I have once had an opportunity to talk to a 7-year-old child in English.
I found that he is not a fluent speaker in English(as his second language) in the beginning. As our conversation kept going on, I notice the problem is that he doesn't know how to put words into sentences.

Like the situation above, if you ask a person to watch the video that requires his/her understanding of the cultural background without teaching, he/she may feel frustrated and the teaching on videotext would not kick in.

SL-2 SHOPPING TIME!!!

In the first time of playing Second Life, Emma and I had already started to shop in webpages of SL.
However, strangely, EVERYTHING we ordered isn't put in our bags.

On April 10th we had another SL class.
And the purpose for this class is: shopping!!!
We went to a shopping mall that has many floors in it.
In the first floor it displays many dresses that have seven or more colors of one style.
I clicked all the dresses I like and went upstairs.

There are many kinds of dresses, hmm, more like costumes, that carries impressive names.
There are names such as Birds, Golden birds, Mermaid and Angels.
For the first time I know the indulgence of SL: You can dress whatever you want to dress
because it is a virtual online game.
You don't have to care about how people may judge your appearance (how can you judge a werewolf or a vampire?)
and thus, you can be whoever(or whatever) you wanna be.

You can have a picture with a pirate skeleton థ౪థ
(But I am still not good at turning front or turning back; it takes me some time to take this picture)












Then we were transported to a place that has a garden made by other students. It's a glowing garden maze.

I got a Golden Bird suit.
I am not sure if it was the reason that Emma pointed me with a gun.

Spending only a little time to leave the maze, our classmates started to take a picture of strange poses and laugh, dance together.

I bought a set of 50 model poses!!







When I flied pass by a house, I saw a beautiful scene of sunset. It is my favorite moment of a day.



Glad to end my adventure in this specific moment.

New in Second Life

I start my Second Life due to course demand.

At first, I don't know what to expect. 

It doesn't seem to be like other online games that is task-oriented.

It doesn't give you a certain target to fulfill.

All it provides is an avatar that is really exquisite for a game. 

When I was engaging my registration, I chose to be a woman that looks like a hunter.

Then, let’s go on the adventure!

My avatar, Wednesday, was on a beach at first.

All my classmates were at the beach but it is confusing that we cannot see

each other. Someone said that it is because that we were in different channels.

I try to walk, jump, and fly with both the mouse and the keyboard. On my way of exploration, I 

found someone stuck in the sand. Hm, that’s funny. 

I kept walking, and then a message popped up. Someone said hello and I said hi in response. He (or 

She, I am not very sure) said he’s new in SL and he’s a Mexican. 

I think, oh, that’s it. The purpose of this game is to provide you a platform to meet people all over the world.

In my first exploration, I just walk (actually fly mostly) around and kind of get lost.

Finally I got on a hot air balloon trip to see where it would take me to. 

~To be continued!

Task journal of Final Project-Faith Of Diplomas For Students In NCU(3.2)

　This week, on June 6^th, Emma led us to play “merry-go-round.” It seemed to be a game, but more than a game. The game gave us a chance to introduce our project and engage on opinion interflow.

　　I think it’s the most important thing that this class wants us to learn: learn to be good at asking and answering the question specifically. 

　　When we were the acceptor in other groups, we had to follow what they are trying to express and find the problems of their question. And when we were at the position to give them a concrete perspective of our survey, we ought to ensure they understand what we talk about. 

　　Thus, the “game” also makes us to practice our skill of oral communication.

　　In the progress of arranging a questionnaire, we had gone through a big change. 

　　Claire found lots of parts we neglect to discuss and may impact the completeness of survey. Originally, we don’t know what the exact result the survey would present: we have asked responder’s opinion, but don’t have a conclusion of it. 

　　So we adjusted some parts of the questionnaire to bring out the theme we are interested in. It caused some obstacles (we have to repost our questionnaire and it seems annoyed in some of our friends) but made the survey intact.

The Myth of Degree-First Draft of Final Project

➣figure1 from www.newsgogo.com

 The Myth Of Degree

Does Higher Degree Means Better Job?

　　In the progress of discussing the theme of our project, we thought it would be fun and exciting to deal with tenderness of different kinds of gender. But after class presentation, we found that it had much more complicated details that are hard for us to deal with.

　　Then, we started to figure out other topic that may interest people. We reviewed our themes and pick one of them. We focus on the myth of diploma and conduct a survey of college students’ faith of it. The primitive motivation is: does the diploma promise a good job? There’s a news days ago states that a graduator with doctor’s degree has a job not corresponding to his status; he’s selling fried chicken.

➣figure2 from talk.news.pts.org.tw

　　It’s common phenomenon in Taiwan for people to chase higher diploma, which seems to be a guarantee to high salary. It causes a “myth of diploma.”  The society and parent press the student to study more, and more or less make them study just for degree, not for learning. And the result is, some of students do not have exact plan for future, and don’t know what they can do or they like to do.

　　The news of a doctor selling fried chicken may give students in Taiwan a big strike in mind. And we are interested in what’s college students’ opinion to it. We decided to ask if they are faithful in their department and if they had a chance to choose again, will they still keep studying for a higher degree. The result will show how they think of the diploma and how will they deal with the myth of degree.