:: Netwoman ::

:: Tuesday, October 31, 2006 ::

TracyTrail Blazer
Originally uploaded by Netwoman.

Great Northern Way Campus & Second Life

I've recently been invited to participate and work with something very exciting. As you know, I spend a fair amount of time in Second Life - a virtual reality environment - and now I can spend even more time in SL...

Also exciting is a new Master's of Digital Media at Great Northern Way Campus in Vancouver, BC.

About GNWC:

In 2001 Finning International, Inc. donated a substantial parcel of land to Simon Fraser University (SFU) the University of British Columbia (UBC), the British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT) and the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design (ECIAD), to help create British Columbia’s newest—and most original—post-secondary institution.

The four partner institutions formed the Great Northern Way Campus Trust to accomplish their common goal of building a unique and integrated centre of excellence in teaching and learning, research and entrepreneurship, with program and collaborative research opportunities not available on any one campus. In concert with Provincial and Federal governments, the City of Vancouver, industry and agencies, the Great Northern Way Campus is set to become a model of innovative research and education.

About the Master's Program:

Masters of Digital Media (MDM)
This innovative, full time professional graduate degree program will offer students team-based experiences focused on project learning in close collaboration with BC's vibrant games and digital media industry. The MDM is a 20 month program, including a summer internship. Graduates will develop the professional skills required to be effective creators, practitioners, and senior managers in this rapidly growing industry. The degree will be accredited by Vancouver's 4 major post secondary institutions: the University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University, Emily Carr Institute of Art + Design, and the British Columbia Institute of Technology.

There's an excellent write up about it on SFU's website:

Great Northern Way Campus will fulfill four critical and urgent social and academic goals:

1. Innovation - GNWC will concentrate on innovation in all areas, from developing research capacity with a strategic focus on the new economy to modeling best practices in teaching and program design. It will also strive to remain nimble in structure to assure the flexibility necessary for ongoing innovation.
2. Integration - GNWC will make available the strengths of four leading institutions to students whose academic and professional goals cannot easily be met by any one of the four alone.
3. Enhancement - academic collaboration among institutions will create synergies; the whole will be greater than the sum of its parts.
4. Stimulation - the New Economy demands a talented pool of citizens who will continue to educate, innovate and stimulate economic growth in the local, provincial and national economies. GNWC will provide that talent.

Second Life:

So what does SL have to do with the new Master's program at GNWC? GNWC is having an open house on November 25th in BC - wouldn't be great to have an open house in Second Life as well? Here's a recent article from the Vancouver Sun by Randy Shore:

An open house for prospective students is scheduled for Nov. 25 at the Vancouver campus and the virtual campus now being built in the three-dimensional metaverse, peopled by more than one million registered users worldwide.

"I want students to be comfortable in every form of virtual reality there is, and Second Life is the dominant platform, at least currently," said Bruce Clayman, CEO of the new campus.

The school's senior staff will be hosting the open house at both the real and virtual campuses.

I really think that Second Life is an excellent platform for all of this to take place - it's creative, innovative, fun - and the way we are heading with CMC & virtual spaces.

The decision to take the new masters program into the virtual world was an easy one, Clayman says. "Most of the students are already there. They live their lives in a variety of virtual places, games, animations and in Second Life."

So what's my role? I'm working with GNWC as a virtual Research Assistant to create a presence in Second Life - something that hasn't really happened in this magnitude before. The picture you see here is TracyTrail Blazer - my academic avatar in SL. If you see anyone with the name Trail after their first name, and then Blazer as the last name, there's a good chance that you're talking to someone from the Digital Media program.

Feel free to contact me in Second Life if you have any questions about the new program - or if you just want to say hello - please do.

I will be blogging more about this new program, and the virtual academic environment in the next few months...

:: Netwoman 10:11 AM [+] ::
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Family life changes, but children still the focus

Relative to my thesis - interesting new book about comtemporary families:

"A new book says much has changed in US families since 1965, especially the number of mothers working. But one surprise was was the amount of time parents spend teaching, playing with and caring for their children" - Media article HERE

Main Finding's from Jason:

Women do twice as much housework and child care as men.
But dads are doing tons more. In 1965, dads spent 4.4 hours on housework. In 2000, they spend 9.7 hours a week.
Moms spent 34.5 hours a week on housework in 1965; now moms spend 19.4 hours a week.

Married moms spent 10.6 hours on child care activities in 1965; that's up to 12.9 hours/week today.
Married dads went from 2.6 hours/week to 6.5 hours/week
Single moms went from 7.5 hours/week to 11.8 hours/week

So even though more moms are working, they're spending more time with their kids. Why? Parents are multitasking more and sacrificing housework. Many would rather have time with kids and a messy house, than a clean house, and no time with kids. And social expectations have changed. Today, parents don't let their kids just leave the house and go play (I think as long as I was home by dinner, I was OK at my house). Now parents accompany their kids to playgroups and play dates, etc. It's just different.

:: Netwoman 3:46 PM [+] ::
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CFP: Gamers in Society Seminar

Gamers in Society, Play in Culture
The Third Annual Game Studies Seminar
organised by the University of Tampere Game Research Lab April 17-18, 2007, Tampere, Finland

The social aspects of digital gaming are gaining increasing attention by academics, game developers and media alike. Popular controversy on the supposedly detrimental effects of games are countered by growing attention to the social value and cultural significance that contemporary games present to their players. New research is probing the precise roles games and playing occupy in the lives of various groups and individuals, producing interesting data about the multiple domains of life within information technology saturated societies.
Simultaneously this kind of socio-cultural studies of game players require novel approaches into existing theories and methodologies in human sciences, informed by dialogue within the emerging field of game studies.

Gamers in Society seminar invites presentations on this multidisciplinary and dynamic field; the seminar is third in the annual series of game studies working seminars organised by the Games Research Lab in the University of Tampere. The list of possible presentation topics includes, but is not limited to:

• ethnographic studies of particular groups of game players
• studies about social networks or communities created around, or within
games
• research into the social roles and dynamics within such game communities
• inquiries into the everyday uses and social significance of games
• studies into issues related with status, value and social norms that
govern the position of games and gamers within the wider context of contemporary society
• demographic studies mapping the time, money or other investments into
games by various parts of the population
• studies discussing the concept of game culture, or applying cultural
and social approach into game studies

Due to the work-in-progress emphasis, we strongly encourage submitting late breaking results, working papers and/or submissions from graduate students. Early considerations from projects currently in progress are most welcome, as the purpose of the seminar is to have peer-to-peer discussions and thereby provide support in refining and improving research work in this area. After the seminar, a printed publication may be edited from the final versions of the selected papers of the seminar, or they might be published within an electronic repository such as the DiGRA digital library. However, all such publication plans are finally subject to discussions and agreement among the seminar participants.

The papers to be presented will be chosen based on abstract review. Full papers are submitted prior the event to all participants, in order to facilitate discussion.

The two-day event consists of themed sessions that aim to introduce current research projects and discuss ongoing work in social and cultural study of players. The seminar will be chaired by professor Frans Mäyrä (Hypermedia Laboratory, University of Tampere). Paper commentators include associate professor T.L. Taylor, the author of Play Between Worlds: Exploring Online Game Culture (The MIT Press, 2006).

The seminar will be held in Tampere, Finland and will be free of charge; the number of participants will be restricted.

Important Dates

Abstract Deadline January 15th, 2007
Notification of Acceptance January 30, 2007
Full Paper March 31, 2007
Seminar April 17-18, 2007

Submission Guidelines

Abstract submissions should range from 800 to 1.000 words + references.
Abstracts should be send to info-gamestudies@uta.fi as plain text only (no attachments). Guidelines for submitting a full seminar paper will be provided with the notification of acceptance.

As the seminar is intended as a relatively informal forum for discussion, no strict length restrictions apply for the full papers; the scope of the papers may vary from 3.000 to 8.000 words. If the selected works are published after the seminar, further guidelines will be provided in the editorial process.

The presentations held at the seminar should also encourage discussion, instead of only repeating the information presented in the papers.
Tentatively every paper will be presented for 10 minutes and discussed for 20 minutes.

:: Netwoman 1:46 PM [+] ::
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What's New in Second Life

Second Life to begin selling real names

Soon you can spend a nice bit of coin to have your own last name in Second Life. For a $100 setup fee and a $50-a-year maintenance fee, you can have your own name if you can afford it. It's a steep price.

If you're a researcher or academic in Second Life, you might be interested in a new list-serv dedicated to this area. I've joined - and it's already interesting.

To keep track of SL media stories, I subscribe to Google news feed, but this site is useful and makes it easy - Linden Lab News - at Topix.net.

SL has the 1 million user/resident mark!

:: Netwoman 11:05 PM [+] ::
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Future Homes

Microsoft: Future homes to use smart appliances, interactive wallpaper

The latest remodel of the Microsoft Home, the software vendor's techno-fueled vision of domestic accoutrements of the future, has no robot butlers nor any flying cars parked in the driveway.

But what it does showcase -- and predict will be available to well-heeled cocooners five to 10 years hence -- are a variety of smart appliances, from lamps to interactive wallpaper, that can be controlled by tablet PCs or cell phone-wielding residents.

Microsoft Corp. showed off the Home, located on its Redmond, Wash., campus this week.

First built in 1994 at a different location, the Home is stocked with technology that has been refreshed every few years. In the latest edition, not a single desktop or even laptop computer was displayed. Rather, Microsoft officials assume that computing power, mesh networking and thin LCD and OLED screens will become so cheap and ubiquitous that residents will be able to interact with computers from anywhere in the home.

:: Netwoman 9:57 AM [+] ::
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