TLVW at jokadiaGRID

It is Spring 2013 and I am enrolled in MAT616.SP13 which is "Teaching and Learning in Virtual Worlds: Games and Simulations" at Marlboro College Graduate School. I shall simply refer to it as TLVW in the future. This place is dedicated to "education and the arts"; certainly a good thing.

I am Minit Sands in the virtual world known as jokadiaGRID. It is a 3d world where one can interact with other souls who are in reality sitting at their computers.

My classmates have widely varying experiences with this type of digital interaction from no experience to a great deal of experience. This might be the most interesting part of the journey. How to express yourself as an avatar is something of a topic when suddenly you can change how you appear to others so utterly and completely. This can become an existential question riddled with meaning regarding age, gender and one's appearance. Most avatars do seem to be young and beautiful! I usually start out with something approximating my real life self and then dress that up for a bit for flair.

Here are pics of Minit as she evolved over the last few days. According to my in-world profile Minit was actually born in jokadiaGRID on 3/28/2013. I wanted to check the place out before class started.

This last screenshot was me in Second Life. I like my corduroys and this hairdo. ;)

The truth is that I do like tweaking the avatar! I try to have fun with it while I certainly have noticed my own reactions to the possible choices available and how we might present ourselves virtually. What does it mean, does it matter?

That is all for now.