Diaries of Viki Silvansky – Planning and conducting a workshop, February 22, 2009

Dear Diary
Another interesting thing happened in my life today and that was my first ever official workshop.
As a part of my MUVEnation activities, I had to design a workshop and manage everything else around it…
For me choosing the topic was not that hard as I had some ideas in my mind…
I had a very good feedback on my hypnotee so I though I can teach everyone else to make one.
The planning and preparing took quite a time specially considering my virtual disabilities (not having WIKI) but I managed to finish everything a day before with the help of my amazing friends (specially Anna).
I build my own platform, wrote my workshop materials, create an evaluation form, take photos of my step by step creations and putting them as slide show.
Everything was ready and at 1:00pm people start to arrive at my skybox…
It was a great feeling… everything was going so smooth that I was wondering is this for real?
It didn’t take much until I make a disaster… not exactly a disaster but something wrong and funny…
I deleted my own platform ) Imagine that…
Why may ask how that happened… and why that funny…
Story started days back when I attended Cvetka’s workshop. Someone mistakable deleted her platform which created a bit of unwanted break. Seeing and knowing that, I decided to lock my platform to prevent that… and I did…
After the first session of the workshop, i gave a short break to everyone else and in the mean time i decided to turn back the wings left from other participants. Now you can imagine what happened next..
I clicked and choose delete…
Got a message telling me “the object is locked, are you sure you want to delete it?”
And my answer was “YES”
The next second I was watching myself falling down from 400m above the ground and laughing out loud as I did such a mistake…
Anyway… as we were in the break and everyone else was sited nothing serious happened and I was back on track after 2 min with a new platform.
But all that though me something… it’s better to have your feet on the ground
Most important thing was how my brain fooled me… thinking that I have locked the platform and nothing will happen to it make me be so sure about deleting even though I saw the message…
Other than that most of things were just great…
Participants were my best friends who I always enjoy working with them and we all managed to do a great job.
I guess everyone learned a lot… and that includes me too…
I have realized some many new things….
For example, as part of event discretion I mentioned that all levels (newbies, experts) are welcome and I really included all the instructions necessary for every level…
But during the workshop I realized that is not they day to do it because those participants who were experts might get board of my detailed instruction that I was giving newbies and the pluses within the workshop. On the other hand, newbies are ever feeling worse, getting anxious that everyone is building quickly and they don’t even know how to drag an object.
After all everything went on and we ended up with 5 wing trees for session one and 4 flexi wing trees for session two…
The results were amazing, and I am really happy about them.
It was another day in SL to remember

The Hypnotree

Basically it happened…

We were going to have MUVEnation fashion show (“MUVEshow as I call it”), so I bought a dress designed by Nicky Ree which was absolutely fantastic. In matter of seconds I fell in love with its wonderful texture and for a while that was all I could think about. After some days I realized that the dress is modifiable, meaning that I can make something out of the pieces of the dress but I would not have the textures that I loved so much….

I thought to myself “why not?, I have already worn that dress, so better to create something new out of it” (recycling J). But even thinking what will be possible to make with such texture was hard….

In the following week, for MUVEnation, I saw a highlight of an in-world session to make trees for near future and that was the trigger for me to make a tree out of the pieces of cloths that I had.

So I started delinking the dress into pieces and change their shape to get the best look of the textures as I could not access the texture itself. Anyway, after long long hours of struggling with both transparent and flexible objects I ended up creating my first ever tree….

I have to admit I am really PROUD of myself…..

I put one in MUVEnation Island but somehow tree was not in harmony with the environment, so I though I can make something for that… went back to Surrey Island and made what I called it as “Fantasy Cube” in dark navy blue colour and that was the time that I really felt everything is all right.

Then it was time to find a name for the tree…. my first feeling about the texture was “water lily” to me and I was thinking to name it like that but then I thought my tree is not looking like a Lotus, so why name it that and next minute I myself building one. After 2 hours wondering how to make best of features, I have my water lilies which could serve even as seats to complete the glory of the fantasy Cube.

Now everything was getting together, the tree, its cube, water lily seats, ghost lights, but still something missing to make this place prefect…. MUSIC…. as I didn’t have the mode to deal with that one I just bought some of the ready in-world and add them to the combination of the items in fantasy cube.

For a day or two that place was only a personal experience to me until friends are started commenting about it J I was really thrilled when people were telling me that “we come to that place to distress ourselves” and “it makes me feel relaxed and happy”. Other than the comments, design of this tree brought me the Title of “Virtaul Designer”; something that I was dreaming about it for a long time J

However, days passed and the tree was only “the tree” for me and others until, my friend Cvetta Nacht put the picture of the pink version of the tree writing the following lines:

“I’m obviously obsessed with this tree…. so much so that I found myself floating among the layers leaves of its fuchsia version. ”

And that was the time when i came up  with the idea of “hypnosis” and been conformed by Cvetta as:

                                 “The Hypntree”

As its put people in a position that they find themselves even not believing the feeling that a simple tree can create within them

So now the tree has a name and a home: you can visit “the hypnotree” and “fantasy cube” in Surrey Island

Is this Madness or what???? No Comment

 

This text is copy of the local chat between me and the Host of the place…. I am deleting the name of the person to not effect her reputation.

Location: Pondessa

Reason: analyzing orientation islands design…

[18:52]  TheHost: hello Viki

[18:53]  Viki Silvansky: hi

 [18:53]  TheHost: ah, you arent new here?

[18:53]  Viki Silvansky: new in Sl?

[18:53]  TheHost: yes

[18:53]  Viki Silvansky: no im not

[18:54]  Viki Silvansky: is this your place?

[18:54]  TheHost: well, this is an orientation island for newbies ok

[18:54]  Viki Silvansky: i know

[18:54]  TheHost: would you like to join our group so you can set your home to Pondi?

[18:54]  Viki Silvansky: no thanx

[18:54]  Viki Silvansky: i was looking to some good design of orientation islands, thats y im visiting different places and observe how they done it

[18:55]  TheHost: oh, you should ask the owner permission first Viki

[18:55]  Viki Silvansky: if observing?

[18:55]  TheHost: yes, these are private islands owned by a company

[18:56]  TheHost: permission is always a good idea

[18:56]  Viki Silvansky: as the island is open for public i guess i am allowed to come and have a look around….

[18:57]  TheHost: that is true, but we have to be careful, and we prefer that only newbies are here ok

[18:57]  Viki Silvansky: yes but if someone wants to do something they can always come with newbies avatar, creating new account only takes 5 min

[18:58]  TheHost: thats true also, unfortunately

[18:58]  Viki Silvansky: if u have this rule its ok for me….

[18:58]  TheHost:

[18:58]  Viki Silvansky: but this is not logical, to ask ppl to leave the island with out any reason

[18:59]  TheHost: of having this only for newbies?

[18:59]  Viki Silvansky: if thats the rule, u should have a sign

[18:59]  TheHost: the reason is that these orientation islands are set up for newbies, not for older avies ok

[19:00]  TheHost: and, we are here to inform

[19:02]  Viki Silvansky: byeee

[19:02]  TheHost: byee

MUVEshow

 7 Dec 2008

Emerge Island, Second Life

there is no word that can descripte that night… GLORY is all i can say…

we had everything that can make a fashion show interesting

• sexy purple cat
• Gold fingre
• pixie
• winter flames
• snow queen
• lady in red
• santa clues
• and so much more

Best thing about the show was you could were whatever you wished and we dances alot after the event….

those who weren’t there… basically you MISSED a lot

below are some glimps of that amazing night

Pyramid Portrait Gallery

This week was all about identity and an art gallery to present what we took out of the experince we had this week, the answers to… who you are? how you look? why you look like that? and all other questions which can claify the reality behind each avatar.

So this is what I have to say about what was this week all about for me…

Questions about “who you are” is hard to answer in SL, however it’s not impossible. So many people believe that you can be “who you want” and “what you want” in SL but I might stand there alone and saying NO…

NO, you can’t be who you want to be… and NO you can’t be what you want to be… You are only who you already are… being who you are might not be physically apparent but mental status. Let’s give an example….

I can’t be Dana Summer… I don’t have the voice

I can’t be Einstein … I don’t have the intelligence

I can’t be Rafaela … I don’t have the talent

So I believe SL is the place to show who you are inside … that appearance can each time reveal a part of your inside…

Second Life look is more about “who you are” than our Real Life because then you don’t have limitation… some will say look at her, she is overweighted in RL but she looks like Madonna in SL… But does anyone asked her what you how you would like to look when she born? What about the guy who has Patrick Dempsey’s hair in SL but actually bald in RL?

I believe SL identity is more REAL that real life, that is why I created the Pyramid Portrait Gallery in SL (muvenation island). A black small pyramid that you can’t see anything unless you go through it and look inside…. Just like our personality… you can’t see anything unless you look through someone and see his/her inside beauty.

Why black?…from outside it is a blocky black pyramid… that is how close minded judgmental people see others, but if someone is brave enough to walk through, they can see the inside beauties. There is no description inside… no names… no identity… it’s up to you want you wanna see… it’s up to your mind to find out the mystery behind each Portrait.

There is a cushion on the ground, a key to see things better, lets call it the  WISE EYE, something that will help you see things better…it goes round and round like life and brings you back to the place you were, to give you another change to make the best perception.

If you have time, go there, Viki is standing there ready to great you.

see you there (MUVEnation, 131,121,201)

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

Designing a micro-learning session

Activity 8

In the last blog I mentioned about my view of you in-world orientation places and how they use different approaches for helping newbeis. In this blog, the focus will be on out-world source called “Global Kids Curriculum (GKCx)“ and the method it use to motivated users to try and learn new things so that  I will finally be able to come up with I own learning environment in-world used GKCx methods. The curriculum is divided into 9 main levels, each including some related modules with predefined missions for students to carry out. I’ve been asked to choose one modules out of 4 modules (appearance, walking and flying, talk a close look and chat) within level one as part of my weekly activity and develop my own environment based on that.

I read through all of these modules and have look at the others and realized that appearance is one of the most complicated actions with level one and this module is being followed by level two “avatar: cloth“ module. Moreover, from my personal experience of teaching students how to use SL, I realized that they will prefer to fix they look before they want to do anything else (specially management and politic students) which give them a sense of ownership (at first stage) over their avatar and reflects them more than default avatars. This usually gives them the confidence to interactive with other avatars; not feeling that they are different.

Based on these points, I decided to design my environment based on “appearances“ to that I will be able to adopt it for “cloths“ as well. But the main point considered in the design and development should be following points:

• Allows the development of the Mission’s Powers
• It’s engaging and playful
• Complies with the list of principles for an effective design of an orientation session.

So this is my design scenario J  how much it fits the following characteristics you can judge…

“ An avatars will come to the orientation place, and what they will see is a notice board asking “this is a game that you can choose to look like either Merlin Monroe or G.W. Bush at the end of them, decision is put to you… follow the light and click on them to guild you through”. So basically at that point avatars will start a game with a mission to look like someone and now they have to start follow the lights.

The lights are sequential so you should pass to activate the other one so in each stage users don’t know exactly what is waiting for them.  Lights are standpoints which users will click on them and get the position of changing appearance. By users click and stand a notice board will appear with information in each stage to help them change their appearance such as the shape, skin, hair and …

Choosing different genders can even help users to learn how to switch between different avatars as well and later the chooses can be changed or even for advanced avatars become randomized. At the end of the path, there can be a mirror to show them how they look and a notice board of how they can take a picture of that they created and compare with this what they decided to look at first place.

This is not only an individual design but also can be used for group learning. As long as most of the objects are invisible until the user reaches there so basically they don’t need much of a pre-designed space. They can be copied so there will be some number of them to go through and finally other student or course constructors can judge who the winner of the game is.”

This is the best activity I have done so far…i love thinking about the next interesting idea to develop. I’m not sure how successful this idea will be but I think this would a nice experience for newbies and I would try to develop it in SL but the main challenge for me will be scripting them as long as I’m lazy (really lazy) when it comes to scripting and possibility it will take some time to finish it. 

So dear readers feel free to contact me if you are interested in this project and I’m sure we will enjoy it more if we work together.

My Story of First Hours of Life in Second Life

 Activity 6 -week 1

For all of my life, I’ve been fascinated by animated movies and cartoons and suddenly they are telling me that I can be flying ET in the island of fairies now and rainbow hair man the next minute…isn’t that just great

However, my first attempt was far away from fantastic… I had to create 3 avatars before the system will accept any and spent long time to get the system going but all seemed to be ok as long as I had that fairyland in my mind and ………..   The dialogs within my mind continued….

3, 2, 1, and BINGO, I’m there… oooo…what is this? Where am I? Who are these gray creatures around me? Why I’m being pushed? Someone seems to be on my head? This is not like the picture of the SL page? Am I in the wrong place? So what should I do?…

Anyway, after standing still in the same spot (which I didn’t know is the telehub place) for 5 min, I find the courage to make my first moves. I realized after a while that I’m in orientation island so I was excepting to have some kind of slide show (maybe even a web based one) before I actually started to control my avatar. I even tried to talk with some people and ask for help but most of them were in the same situation as me.  The island was far more boring than what I had in mind and it was not helpful in getting me around as well, so I searched for “fun” and ended up in “club” without knowing how to control my avatar. While I was amazed with people’s ability to manage their avatars (they were dancing I didn’t know that animations exist), I bumped into a guy which with my definition at the time was “virtually cool” J (it was completely unintentional J ). That night I was lucky though, he helped me a lot regarding knowing SL. He added me as a friend and taught me how to use the map and mini-map, teleportation and my mouse view. After some time, he suggested showing me some interesting places; first we went shopping for virtual items which I couldn’t really digest it at the time. He even gave me L$100 so I can buy things if I wish to and showed me freebies places such as “deva luka” to get things for free. After fixing my look, he teleported me to “titanic”, which is still one of my favorite places in SL for chillaxing (chilling and relaxing).

After that night, I find the confidence to live my SL and started to explore different places. I started to wonder around and build my network of people which for a while was my only source for help. Afterwards, I decided to search web for how to use SL and I found videos the most helpful tool, specially Torley Lindens posts. In order to gain some experience I would randomly open one of his videos and try to experience it in-world simultaneously. When I started to build things in SL, I found my knowledge on previous 3D application (such as 3dmax) quite helpful to have an idea about the perspectives of different objects and how to handle sets of them as the link objects.

Hmmm, long story short, after more than a year I’m still being surprised everyday and learn as I go along. Now, I see myself not only as Anna but Viki also, with the belief that behind each avatar is a person with all human feelings that controls them.

Message to newbies: In second life you will not face even half of the problem that you face in the first life J and don’t expect your new born avatar run like an adult. Finally, if you are not comfortable in-world use outside sources to learn what you should do in SL.