User-exemplar
(Digital Photography, London South Bank University)
(Sugar Michalsk)
Prior experience on SL
Sugar had never used SL before she joined this pilot study. She heard SL from her course tutor and found it interesting from the tutor’s introduction. She wanted to know how SL looks like and how to use it.
Sugar likes SL very much after playing in it for a few hours. She enjoyed very much the opportunities to meet people and socialise with them, and visit places she can’t go in real life.
Engagement with SL activities
Development interactive objects
Sugar found the group activity of creating story cubes interesting and engaging.
“We all got our own little part of the story into one big story, which was good as usually we just do stuff on our own, but this was team work…We haven’t done group work for a long time.”
She learned from the pictures other students displayed on their cubes.
“I learned what kind of subjects people like to take photos of. What things mean to them…What kind of topic they are really into. Personally, I had different kinds of pictures from different places, and a lot of them meant different things. I took loads of photos, at least 30, and they all mean different things and different reasons why I took them. ”
Virtual gallery
Sugar likes the idea of using the space in SL for displaying her work, “you can have a gallery on it and you can put your work up for people to see it”. But there might be difficulty in running a virtual gallery in SL. People may have access issues.
“But it’s kind of difficult as well because obviously you have to let people know it’s on there, and then to get on people have to register and download the software, and they might find it too much and a bit of a problem just to see it when you could of actually just gone somewhere to see it. Otherwise it would be a good idea.”
Group discussion & negotiation in SL
Sugar found group discussion in SL easy, because they know each other in real life. She thought in SL everyone was involved and able to contribute to the group discussion equally.
“That was good. Everyone did it. Everyone paid attention. Everyone got involved, everyone said their bit, how it should work and stuff like that. And in the end, it was probably the best way to get it together with all the content layers that were involved.”
Sugar is quite comfortable with text-based communication. She has been using text-based messages a lot, even to the person in the same room.She found using text in SL the same as in other text-based communication tools such as MSN.
“I think it’s exactly the same thing. Because texting, MSN, SL chat are basically doing the same kind of thing by typing.”
She found text-based communication sometimes works better than talking. For example, ideas are more thought through in text.
“I think when you type things out, you can think quicker. You can think what you’re gonna write. When you talk you just say things…You do think [when you talk], but not much as you would when you write something. You write something, and then think, and then can change it, and then write more so it makes more sense.”
Presence through avatars
Sugar felt comfortable with avatars. She used to have an avatar on her Facebook. She was able to tell the difference between an avatar in SL and on Facebook.
“Basically it’s a little bit different as you can visually see the form of the person and what they are trying to make themselves be through their avatar, but with MSN chat you can just see the picture but then it doesn’t move or anything and is static, but the avatar can move around and you can still talk to them so you feel like you are actually in there with them.”
This difference gives her a positive feeling about SL. She felt that presence through avatars and being able to see a visualisation of the person helped her to get to know them quicker and better.
“Yeah, by seeing a visualisation you can see what they are kind of about. No one’s avatar is just plain and simple, everyone’s avatar looks slightly crazy. So it’s kind of like how I would really like to be or how I am deep inside.”
“Yeah, it kind of does! I think with most people their avatar is like they are bringing their inner side out. It is how they kind of feel inside, and their avatar is like how they want to be, or how they kind of feel.”
Nevertheless, back in her mind, she still had this concern that she’s not dealing with the real person through their avatars.
“I’m not too sure with that because you don’t know if they are who they say they are. The avatar is just an avatar and not exactly a reflection of what they look like or who they are. It is like how they want to be, but that doesn’t necessary mean the real person is like that.”
Sugar talked to lots of people she doesn’t know on MySpace, she identified a difference between why people are on MySpace or SL. This difference makes it easier to tell the real identity of the people on MySpace.
“But with mine [MySpace], I’ve got a lot of people that do music and photography, and art stuff, so it’s more likely that they are not fake and they are going to be real people as they are just promoting what they are about, and the arts. That is mainly how I talk to people, on the same kind of level as me, and trying to do their own thing.”
Sugar made her avatar how she wanted herself to look like.
“She looks like how I want to look like. First I made her kind of short, but then the first outfit she had on was totally not like anything I would wear, it was a skirt, and I’ve never worn something like that. So I had to change it, I also cut the hair, and made her a bit taller. But more or less, it’s kind of how, well, the way she is dressed is kind of what I wanted anyway, but the hair is very different, and the hat is obviously very different.”
Basically, she made her avatar looks like herself both inside out.
“It’s just like the inner me basically is what I’ve got on her. The way she dresses is how I do dress the majority of the time.”
“It’s kind of how I am visually, and also mentally I kind of put my character onto her, like with the crazy hair.”
She observed that most people in her group made their avatars look like how they are. It wasn’t difficult for Sugar to tell who the person is behind the avatar.
“A few of them were literally just visually looking exactly like them. Actually most people’s were just like how they are. I think only one person was completely ‘woh! I wouldn’t think you would do something like that’, it’s completely different, kind of opposite to how they act or how I see them act. They’re obviously, that’s kind of they feel be.”
Sugar noted that everyone in this group behaved exactly the same as it is in real life. They know each other in real life, and they are able to make joke and have fun with each other in a comfortable way in SL.
“Yeah more or less, but that’s because three of them are my friends anyway so the humour and behaviour they would do on there is exactly the same as it is in real life.”
However, Sugar thought that it would take longer for strangers to get to know each other well and start proper conversation in SL.
“You would have to be slightly more reserved, and step back to see what they like first before you start acting. If people don’t know you and you are just the way you are, they might think this person’s funny or something. So you have to be more reserved, and observe how they are and get to know them before you start being who you are and decide how to behave.”
Socialization in SL
Sugar thought that it is much easier to start a conversation with anyone on SL than in real life.
“I think it would probably be easier in SL because you can talk to anyone. No one is going to tell you to go away, or act like that. People don’t know each other so will talk to you anyway. On the street it is very different. You can’t just talk to anyone. There are certain people you can talk to, and basically it depends who they are.”
“But online you can talk to anybody because no one actually knows who you are, where you live or where you are from, so you can just talk to them about anything.”
Sugar had plenty of experience talking to people she doesn’t know on MySpace. Her experience showed that it’s quite easy and comfortable for her to talk to people and make friends online.
“I think it is a lot easier in SL, as basically you don’t know them. They’re strangers, you’re a stranger. They are not too far away to talk to you through their computers. Cos everyone does it anyway with things like Facebook and MySpace, there are people there you don’t know.”
“Mostly with MySpace, as I have a photography page so have a lot of people who do photography and stuff like that on it…after a while when you have been speaking to them for ages and ages they become your new friends. You can have friends from all over the place.”
During these teaching sessions, Sugar talked to the others in real life more than in SL. They mainly teleport each other and share information about interesting places in real life.
“I think we were talking about teleporting places. I was asking everyone ‘where are you? Teleport me.’ They teleported me to where they were or asked me to teleport them to where I was. I used it at home one time and me and my friend were looking for cloves and stuff.”
She thought that the fact they all know each other in real life made their socialisation much easier in real life than SL.
“I think what it was, we were all kind of getting into SL when we started doing the training, everyone was still just talking like normal, But as we got on, we realised it was better to just talk in the chat, so everyone can just talk together instead of just shouting across the room. You can just talk in there and everyone can reply back with what they want to say. Because we know each other we were talking as we normally would.”
However, for a group of strangers, they would probably just focus on SL.
“But I think if we were strangers, we would just focus on SL rather than just talking to people next to you straight away.”
Learning how to use SL
Sugar is a self-exploratory type of person. She followed the training guide to set up an account and an avatar, logon to SL and explored on her own. She found the basic skills in SL quite easy, in her own words, “I find it easy”, “It’s really simple”.
She has never played any computer games, but still found basic skills in SL easy.
“No, the only problem at first was the basic manoeuvres, how to move and fly, and stuff like that, but after you learn the buttons to use it’s so easy.”
“As soon as I knew what buttons to use and how to do things I found it easy to use. I did it in about 10 minutes.”
She bumped into other residents in SL and asked them how to do things. By exploring SL, she found lots of free stuff, “I’ve got some free stuff now. I’ll sort the appearance out”. Before Sugar joined the training, she had already got hold of a range of technical skills. Sugar is very confident on learning technical stuff, in her own words “I learn this thing quickly”.
During the training, Sugar had the opportunity to further practised basic skills. She had no difficulties in searching and finding information in SL.
Sugar had problems in creating the story-cube.
“It’s very difficult at the beginning. First, I did two cubes, the first one disappeared so I had to do another one again. When I did mine I had picture upside down. Everyone else’s seems to be the same way up all the way round, mine was like, some upside down and some up the right way.”
She found moving the cubes around a bit challenging.
“It’s difficult to make the cubes and arrange the pictures. He [the trainer] made it easy by explaining how to do it, but it still came up a bit wrong.”
She also found that the camera control function in SL is too limited and basic for a professional photographer.
“It’s very basic, it’s just left/right/ zoom in/zoom out/tilt up/tilt down. Obviously I would like to do more different things and more angles. You can’t lean and you can’t get every angle. There are certain things you can’t do with it, and it’s very basic.”
In real life a photographer needs more techniques.
“It’s more technical. You do more because most of your work is like art. You want to perfect it, and have to do certain things and you focus on different things.
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