Topic 1- Second Life

Wk 1 - Lectures, Readings and Tutorials

Lecture-

My first communications lecture kept in format with the general first week lecture structure we begin with the introduction of the course teachers followed by the inevitable course outline. To my surprise this was followed by a documentary featuring a game known as “Second Life”. The documentary followed the usually format with an introduction into the game, its basis, general components and creator. About half way through the main question in which this documentary was based became apparent-“Can virtual reality replace real life?” After a display of characters and slightly disturbing images the documentary came to an end, concluding with a general round up of characters, avatars and the prospective future of the game.

Tutorial-

During the tutorial I was pleasantly surprised by the content of the course being so steadily paced, as I was led to believe by friends that I would be left bewildered and neglected all semester, however contrary to there suggestions I was clearly told how to access the ‘learning@griffith” page, such a task had before worried me. The two hour tutorial then proceeded to introduce me to the basics of the study patterns of university and how the marking system works. We were then given a brief description of the next week’s tutorial outline before our tutor was thoroughly questioned on a number of different aspects of the class.

Readings-

The reading entitled “Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber-Dissidents Contents" appears to generally assess the issue of the blog. It begins by explaining how anyone can create a blog no matter what your personal background in journalism or in most cases lack of background in journalism. The basis seems to be that if you create content that people are interested in and can rely on then you have created a successful blog, it doesn’t matter if your reflecting on what you had for lunch, your political views or Britney’s latest breakdown as long as someone’s interested you’ve succeeded. The article also offers helpful advice to first time bloggers instructing that if your content is questionable an alias should be used to avoid ‘cyber police’. As far as I have read into this lengthy article it appears that the main idea is to teach you the basics of blogging and how to create a successful blog whilst still keeping intact your own beliefs.

Until Next Week....