Interview with Viki Silvansky

 

Greetings everyone!

Today we are interviewing special guest from MUVEnation program in which we are going to ask her questions about herself and what motivated her to become who she is today.

Hello, and welcome to this program.  I’m sure our readers will be very interested to know the background behind this blue head avatar.

 

Q: Tell us why “Viki”?

A: the inspiration behind my name came from Isaac Asimov’s fictional computer introduces in “I, robot” which stands for Virtual interactive Kinetic Intelligence (VIKI). In that book she was a central positronic brain which served as a central computer for robots to provide them with a form of “consciousness” recognizable to humans and develops an interpretation of the “three laws of robotics”. 

 

Q: that’s an interesting name. I would guess you wanted to have Vicky as your name but you couldn’t get it so you put it as Viki. What about the family name?

A: my family name is “Silvansky”, this is because I understand Russian I to me it sounds like Russian which makes me feel comfortable with.  On the other hand, it was in kind of harmony with the name.

 

Q: Can you explain a bit about your history?

A: yes of course, I am an ordinary girl born last year in the cold winter day.  As everybody else, my first days of live were not that easy.  I had to struggle to learn how to walk, or talk, or even sit.  But after a while things started to get better, are starting to find friends and you places which would help me to feel comfortable.  Going shopping those days was one of the most interesting things for me.  But that didn’t last long; I started finding building of objects as a fascinating activity and decided to spend more time on it.

 

Q: what was your main motivation behind your existence?

A: it is a long story, and quite hard to explain.  When I born for the first time I had a predefined responsibility to serve which was exactly related to the name I choose for myself.  My activities started to serve the same purpose too, finding ways to control autonomous machines and I had to admit I was good in what I was doing.  But i was a bit depressing, i was spending hours and hours in one place trying to make things work, without anyone passing around or interaction with any other object. After a while, I started to think what I would like to do next so I would not feel like I’m “Tom Hanks” in “Cast away”. On the other hand, i didn’t want to do only one thing in my whole life and neither what to party every day, so I started to look for around for interesting things.  Some of those interesting things were how to learn some skills to connect my world to the others world and how I can help people to learn from what I already know. That would give me the possibly to interact with others and enjoy my life.

 

Q: That’s interesting!  I’m sure none of our readers would know these things about you. After living such a life what characteristics do you see in yourself that differentiates Viki Silvansky from others?

A:  wow, difficult question to answer actually.  hmmmmm…. I have blue hair as you can see, I love high heels,  I’m quite honest most of the times, You’ll see me nagging a lot and I can get easily get angry over close minded people, I’m a bit risky person, I enjoy teaching and I really love helping newbies.  I think that’s it

 

Q: good to know these, but you usually give a wrong first impression, did u know that? Most people were thinking that you are a selfish, cold blooded, bossy, showoff person. I’m asking this because as I know in your world you can be whatever you wish to be, so how did you build yourself in relation of the effects you’d like to produce?

A: LOL, they might not be wrong fortunately we are in the world that we can be whoever and whatever we wish to be which empowers you in a way. Looking cold blooded may be because of my hair and eyes which will keep judgmental people away. I think that’s kind of good thing because if will end up with real friends who would like me for who I am inside. And yes I can be a bit bossy, and I happy that my look reflects that… if I’m sure about something then I would love them to be the way I know and that’s the time that I will try to convince others as well. But the results are usually on the favor of them too and I would not the only one to abuse others so I can get what I want.

 

Q: what are your main activities here?

A: I usually build things mostly on Surrey Island, that’s where I work.  Sometimes I do scripting as well but not every day. If I have some free time I would usually go to other educational island such as University of Idaho which I have a lots of friends there. Sometimes I attend conferences as well where I can learn new stuff and get to know new people.  Every once in a while I go to Frank’s Jazz palace because I love the music there and I miss wearing beautiful dresses and many other things

 

Q: so you have long list of activities here, but your profile is empty… why?

A: good question, I decided to keep it empty till I know who really I am. Its hard to know everythings in few months, so i thought it would be better to not have things there untill i will sort out my philosophy of existance and then write thing there. I’m almost reaching that point and hopefully I would change it in few months.

 

Q: thank you very much Viki for you time and honest answers. I wish you the best for your journey through your life.

A: thank you for best wishes Anna and thanks for asking interesting question. I hope I answered to the questions that your readers would like to know. But if know they can always comment on your blog and I would be happy to answer that.

 

Q: that would be great. So, dear readers feel free to ask her any question take care and good bye

A: good night

The professional avatar? haha

 

SL is providing the opportunity to use 3 dimensional representations of data and one of these representations is clothing and appearances. I divide different perspective of professional avatars to 4 main groups:

1. Those who believe they “don’t need”: because they just what to focus in the content of their interaction such as those educators that you will see with newbies cloths after a year
2. Those who think “SL is Real life”: they think that they should look like them self’s or professional,  having the same values as RL
3. Those who would like to stay in “moderation”: believing that SL in not RL and they can be as creative as they want but considering being tolerable by other people they interact with.
4. Those who believe that “what you see is just lines of code not me standing naked”: how can possible do anything they wish.

You may wonder which group I belong… the answer is GROUP 3

I have tried different ways to deal with students as professional avatar and I found that it’s important to know the audience. Based on the students I would look different so that they will be comfortable with their teacher. I examined what I’ve learnt in two different scenarios which both were a success for me.

Experience 1: last year I had to present SL to some of university lecturers and staff most of them never played computer games or SL. for them seeing some bit odd could force them to thing this is a stupid gave and never try it back again. At that time, i decided to make Viki not exactly look like Anna but have some kind of relation between them. I decided to wear jeans with boots in RL and even designed a university T-shirt with Viki’s big picture at the back. On the other hand, Viki had the same style black hair, the same T-shirt, jeans and boots. Everyone was almost amazed by the similarities that they could see, that this is not a “world of warcraft” kind of thing and everyone was feeling OK with Viki. after a while when they got used to Viki, the whole story changes and that was when I started triggering the excitement part of discovering what you can be within their minds so I changes things to be different from me but still pleasant.

Experience 2: on the other hand, for teaching those who are in-world only or those how have some ideas about computer games but not much of an interest in SL, I decided not to look like myself and show them something that they say “wow” or even “interesting”. The main key for teaching them was to show “what more I can do here” and motivate them to continue using SL. for that reason, Viki ended up being Barbie like girl with a blue hair, kind of cold face, natural skin girl. For them feeling that you can still be acceptable with blue hair and a cold face as a friendly person were a big step and a motivation to explore what else can be there.

Considering that I usually deal with newbies, while the approach might be different but there are some points that will stay as principles for all sections such as:

• Viki wouldn’t look like her best so that they will not feel bad and being in a reachable step for them to have as goal.
• She would be as human like avatars because it a far too much for a newbies to be comfortable with a bunny or a dragon
• She would refer to her first step to comfort others about the things that might not go well in first steps
• She would not wear things or attach scripted things to her that might distract students (there is already enough distraction in SL)

There is something regarding teaching in SL which i thing is REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT:

Before you start teaching things in SL you should teach them first about the reality of living a second life if they don’t already know it…

I have faced many people that are trying to make a RL out of SL but that is not going to work. Keeping things real in educational environments will misguide them to the idea that whole SL is like that… NO, thats not the reality… reality is that you will see dragons, rabbits and naked people…

If teachers are not going to make sure that students know all the facts about the environment that they are going to use, students might end up confused even disgusted from what they will see in SL specially with articles being published in BBC and other newspapers these days.

 

Some Q & A:

Q: Do you think avatar appearance is an important aspect of educational activities that are being undertaken in Second Life?

A: yes, it is an important aspects because in most of the cases that what others will see as the person. This can come to help to increase the relationships however it should not become as the major problem or a standard way to dress up for professional purposes.

 

Q: What does appearance say about us in a teaching situation in Second Life – to what degree is it the same as real-life?

A: I believe it reveals about thier creativity first and sometimes even it reveals how risky people they are while likes it back to not being affiar of trying new things even if they might be rejected

 

Q: What is an appropriate professional avatar appearance for education?

A: For me, there is no such a concept as “professional appearance”, you might be more effecting in a red ballroom dress than in a gray suit.

 

Q: Does your avatar have a professional appearance for educational contexts? Yes, no? Why?

A: NO, because i believe in it but that doesn’t mean that I will not consider my students and what will make them feel good (but I’m sure wearing a gray suit will not even make Viki feel OK)

 

Q: Is there any appearance you would never use to teach in Second Life and why?

A: I will prefer not to teach naked, because of don’t have people to get divorce 

 

Q: The ability to change avatar appearance could be described as an affordance of Second Life. How can the ability to alter avatar appearance be used as a teaching tool?

A: changing appearances can help teachers to express their ideas, viewpoints and even imaginations. It can help them to make a point of things with wearing the right thing and most important of all motivate their students.