Interview with Professor Tutti

Today during the class break, Eagle Eye Reporter, Ms.Fabulous, had an interview with the EDIT550 Professor Tutti Barbosa. We had a great interview, while Tutti was drinking her coke, and I wished I had a cup of Starbucks. ^_^

MS FABULOUS: Where did you get this idea for the class?

TUTTI: I had heard about Second Life about a year ago and was intrigued. Last spring quarter, I started to get involved. I registered and began exploring. As soon as I entered SL, I knew that I wanted to teach a class here. But, of course, I had to get other people excited about it too, such as my division chair, other colleagues, etc. And, obviously, I needed to have students excited about the idea, an idea which no one really knew anything about at the time.

MS FABULOUS: What did the chair say when you propose this idea?

TUTTI: My chair was quite interested because he had read about SL and had attended a presentation. Then, I made a presentation to our dept. and that "sealed" the deal so to speak.

MS FABULOUS: How long you have been SL? How long that took you to explore it and made up your mind that this is going to be a class?

TUTTI: I was "born" on June 4, 2007--it's in my profile.

MS FABULOUS: Where were you first introduced to SL? Was it from other professors, TV, news, or a magazine article?

TUTTI: I only heard about SL from word of mouth from another faculty member in our college--Dr. Reilly. Then, I Googled it and brought up the official SL website. I read, and registered almost immediately. Since I knew from the start that I wanted to teach a class in SL, I kept my focus on what that would be. What the curriculum would be. Teaching in SL is a dream come true. I know that may sound corny, but it really is. I am just loving this class.

MS FABULOUS: Since this is the first time teaching EDIT 550 in SL, what has surprised you about how the class has gone?

TUTTI: At first, I didn't think we would have any land, although I was hoping for it. Many things have surprised me. Firstly, it is how you all have taken over the class! It is great to see students running the show. This is what I like the most. How you all are working together is the meaning of "constructivism".And, what else is interesting to me, is that everyone is working on one building. I like that this is happening. And, I like that Gerdofal is being so helpful and assisting with the class.

MS FABULOUS: I think you also answered my last question. How will SL benefit the class later on?

TUTTI: SL demonstrates the future of interface and instructional design. Since most people in the class are ed. techies, this is something special that you are learning. By special I mean, it is so avant-garde, so new and state of the art. Even though there are some 250 accredited universities in SL, I haven't come across that many classes being conducted in SL on a regular basis like ours.

MS FABULOUS: Really?

TUTTI: Being on the frontier of where educational technology is headed is special.
I am surely thankful to our division chair for leasing this land to us. Also, I am appreciative of ISTE for letting us use the meeting room. In the beginning, I didn't know that we would have this land, so I contacted ISTE and they were very supportive to allow us to use their facilities.

MS FABULOUS: The Eagle Eye Reporters thank for your interview with us!

TUTTI: I appreciate the interview. Thank you!

We look forward to talking to Professor Tutti again soon!

MsFabulous Walpole

Textures, Textures, Textures

On February 24, 2008, 3 texture group members, Catt Mizin, Argos Barbasz, and Aeva Gabardini, met at CSULA parcel to discuss what texture they can use for the ceiling, wall and floor.

First of all, Argos Barbasz created a wall, and then they started display their texture on the wall. Each of them kept lots of texture. They’ve searched texture online, and loaded on the SL. They also went shopping on Freebie Island. They displayed these textures in turns.

After almost 2 hours discussion, from 12:20 pm to 2: 15 pm, the group agreed that sand as a possible ceiling, rug pattern 2 for possible rug, rice paper 01 for possible art gallery, plaster warm for the wall, gray wall for possible conference room usage, marble for art area or conference room's floor, and brush copper for coffee house.

Sunflower Randt

And then there were walls!

The build has begun on the California State University, Los Angeles parcel of land in Second Life. This parcel of land will be created by the student’s in the EDIT 550 class. There are 16 students in class from various backgrounds and disciplines.

When the building project originally began, we were split into four groups to generate ideas as to what to build on our parcel. After each group presented their ideas and much debate, we agreed that we wanted an informal, hip meeting area for socializing, meeting, and talking with not only our classmates, but potentially others from all over the world. In this area, there was a discussion about having a small stage for performances by artists, poets, and musicians. Many people liked the idea of having art shows and an area for displaying information on various topics. We decided that our target audience was K-12 educators from variety of fields. We wanted to be able to offer classes, tutorials and trainings, especially to new Second Life residents.

At the team leaders meeting, it was decided that having one building would be best, a two-story building, coffee house with a large meeting room on the first floor and an art gallery on the second. XtremeSalsa Tigerpaw created four different floor plans for the class to pick. Great job XtremeSalsa!

On February 19^th, the class decided to follow Floor Plan A and divided again into groups. Gerdofal was designated as our project manager to oversee the entire process. There are 5 groups dedicated to different parts of building which are architects, carpenters, ambience, textures, and reporters.

On Saturday February 23^rd, the walls were created by Architects, Leftern, XtremeSalsa, and Barry. “The goal is to build the shell and lock it in place…walls, floors, and ceiling” said Leftern. The meeting lasted almost four hours. There were many walls and floors that were assembled, lengthened, shortened, moved around, and then were taken apart. There was a discussion about whether the walls should be curved or if it should have corners. Ultimately, the building ended up with corners. It was a very exciting experience to watch the architects construct the building’s shell. Our collective vision is being created. I am very eager to see how the rest of the groups begin to contribute and create their parts of the building.

Happy Building!

Ama Runningbear