Respost of Second Life Blog

As I stated before, I went from having one life to two lives in a matter of minutes.  If you don't remember that post, or maybe you didn't see it, you can go to my posts from October and click "from one life to two."  Anyways, over the past weeks I have thought about Second Life and these online communities that we are able to create now.  In fact, I re-downloaded it and tried it again!  It was much easier to navigate through a second time!  Did you ever think that a program would exist that would allow you to feel a sense of "community" without ever having to leave your house and computer?  I sure didn't.  Let's dig a little deeper into what a community is.

According to Andrew F Wood and Matthew J Smith, authors of Online Communication, a virtual community is "a shared understanding of interrelatedness among participants the opportunity to give and receive positive feedback to and from one another" (233).  In other words, online communities are unique compared to "real life" communities because time and space do not necessarily matter.  For example, with Second Life you are able to login when you want and log out when you want.  You can travel to different places within Second Life and be who you want to be.  Within communities there are different stages.  First, there is something called gesellschaft, which is basically that everyone, is gathered in the same place.  With Second Life everyone that is logged in has the feeling of gesellschaft, they are all on Second Life.  Where communities really start to form is when they move to gemeinschaft, which is where the group togetherness and "we-ness" comes from.  When people are on Second Life but a group of them always meets at 9pm on the Penn State Berks Island and they gather at the same place and talk those people feel the sense of belonging and "we-ness." 

Communities are a wonderful thing and to now be able to feel that online makes them even easier.  Through communities you can feel supported and welcomed.  If your community has a name, a civil language, growth and group history it will have that sense of “we-ness.”  Second Life is more than a virtual reality site where people can go when they have free time.  It a place that many can call home and can feel what they don’t feel in their real life.  Computer mediated communication allows for anonymity, which causes people to disclose more information online than they sometimes do real life.  I had a great time using Second Life and who knows, maybe one day I will have my own community on there!

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!!

Fall is my favorite time of year.  October is a fabulous time for people to, in some far-fetched way; act out multiphrenia by dressing up for Halloween in something they wouldn’t wear on a regular basis.  November is a month to be thankful for all of the blessings in our lives.  It is a great time to get together with family and enjoy a lovely meal.  Now that Halloween and Thanksgiving have come and gone, there is only one month left: December.  Ah, December my favorite month out of the year.  Between snow, skiing, holidays and my birthday, what more could a girl ask for!?   Speaking of let it snow, did anyone happen to be in the Kutztown University Student Union Building last Thursday at 11am?!  I saw that a bunch of students assembled from the formal dining room (room 223) all the way down to the One Card Office.  The students were sprawled out on the ground listening to “Let It Snow” as they made snow angels on the ground.  What in the world were they doing, you ask!?  A FLASH MOB!

A flash mob is when a group of people suddenly gather together in a public place and perform an unusual act for a brief time.  Once they are finished they disperse without saying a word.  In most cases, the purpose of a flash mob is for entertainment, satire or artistic expression.   Interested in watching these students enjoy their SUB winter wonderful?  You can see it on bockmedia.blogspot.com.  I thought it was a great performance.  The students’ swarmed the SUB at the exact same time, laid down on the floor in unison and pretended to make snow angels while “Let It Snow” played in the background.  On the video you can see students watching, taking pictures or stepping over the massive amount of students as they tried to get by.  I think it was a great way to express their creativity and maybe a way to let Mother Nature know we are ready for snow!  Excellent flash mob!