It’s a Small World: How Virtual Communities Are Changing the Ways We Relate -March 12, 2008

http://alum.mit.edu/lt/learning/broadcasts/index.html

“…Speakers:

• Hello Avatar! What Virtual Worlds Mean for Human Communication
  

  Professor Coleman will discuss her research on the use and design of avatar-based virtual worlds and how they are entering popular use in networked communication.

  Beth Coleman, Assistant Professor of Writing and New Media

• What Kind of World Would You Make: Second Life as Thought Experiment
  

  Second Life and other virtual worlds represent a powerful demonstration of what I call Participatory Culture. From the start, it was marketed as a world which would be created through the collective contributions of its users. And because users come with many different motives and from many different kinds of settings, Second Life represents a hybrid media environment, one where commercial, nonprofit, governmental, educational, subcultural, and amateur contributors seek to reshape the world in their own images. Each of these groups are deploying Second Life as the site for thought experiments which allow them to rethink their real world institutions and practices.

  Henry Jenkins, Director of the MIT Comparative Media Studies Program and the Peter de Florez Professor of Humanities

Moderator:

• Steven R. Lerman ‘72, SM ‘73, PhD ‘75, Dean for Graduate Students; Class of 1922 Professor in Civil and Environmental Engineering; Co-director for the Singapore-MIT Alliance; Chair, Faculty Advisory Committee of the MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW); and Director, Center for Educational Computing Initiative.

Viewing Opportunities

Participating Areas
Several local Clubs will be hosting receptions and an opportunity to view the broadcast as a group, allowing you to explore a fascinating societal phenomenon from an academic viewpoint, as well as connect with the local MIT community and network with fellow alumni.

• Tampa Bay, FL
• Cambridge, MA
• Minneapolis, MN
• New York, NY
• Portland, OR
• Southwest Virginia

Individual Viewing
If you don’t live in a city hosting an event, you can log onto this Web page to view the broadcast from your personal computer. Check back on March 12 for the link. The live broadcast from Cambridge will be at 7:00 p.m. EST. Please note: there will be limited slots available for live viewing, although the link will remain active for viewing after the broadcast time.”

I am waiting for info on possible registration fees for the individual viewing.**********

March 6th -MIT-SL events coordinator answers:
“There is no fee for viewing the broadcast online. Up to 200 people can atch it live at 7:00 p.m. EST. The content will then be archived and available on the same web page (http://alum.mit.edu/broadcasts) around 10:00
p.m. EST.”

Groovy!!!