Being There

Although I still haven't yet played it, the more I explore There and the other avatar/gameworlds, the more I become intruiged by the idea of integrating an avatar world experience into one of my NMS courses — perhaps as a collaborative student project/cultural study in the Internet, Writing & Society course I'm teaching next semester. I'm fascinated by the way that There and the Simverse, etc. develop a whole culture around the game. There, for instance, has its own virtual daily newspapers. A two-week analytical immersion in the game followed might fit in well around the time we're reading Sherry Turkle's Life on the Screen. I'm playing around with ideas on it. It might even be a interesting project to collaborate on with students at another university.