First New Media Class out at St Albans

Today was our first day of New Media out at St Albans.

Introduction to Interactive Storytelling, explanation of course outline and assessment

• Linear versus interactive multimedia/storytelling
• History of Multimedia - Speech>Text>Print>Radio>Television>Interactive Multimedia
• Discussion of future technologies and their impact on society in general (Disabled, Digital Divide, Intelligence/Individual Divide, What will become of our current reality?)

Introduction to augmented and virtual reality

Second Life and other Virtual Words

• There
• Openlife
• Activeworlds
• Entropia
• Playstation Home
• The Sims
• Google Earth
• Lively
• Photosynth

What is required in a virtual environment?

Introduction to Second Life

• Registering
• Modifying avatars/characters in Second Life
• Applying textures
• Using the Appearance Tool
• Searching
• Teleporting
• Object, Library and Inventory Use

What is Interactive Story telling?
How can VR be used to tell a story?

You must visit three places in Second Life, take a snapshot, and complete a short review on each place.

• Location Name?
• Region?
• People Online?
• What is done there?
• What is your opinion of it, and why?
• Would you visit again?

Eg;


The first location I visited was Ocean Sunrise.
I liked the trees(nice palms), they used some nice saturated rich colors, and nice waves.
I didn't like the land style, and the sand was a little boring, it needed more shapes or perhaps some grass. There didn't seem like there was too much to do, and there wasn't many original creations to examine.
I would come back if I needed a new style of palm tree.

We finished by posting all this on our blogs.
Student addresses should be posted as replies to this blog.