When I said in my last post that I didnt think anyone in the Uni reads this blog, I was wrong. No comments on the blog, no emails to me, but I get dragged in to see the boss who says that someone has complained that I was being negative about Vue as a whole, which I dont think I was. So I have now promised to keep saying on this blog that everything is hunky-dory and we love all the other schools developing on Vue.
Anyway, to reiterate, everything is hunky-dory and we love all the other schools developing on Vue.
Friday, 11 January 2008
Tuesday, 8 January 2008
Back to Second Life
I thought I had escaped the tedium of Second Life development, but now I have been thrown back in.
To state the glaringly obvious, the Management School lost interest in Second Life because we (they?) could not see how it would actually support our teaching. Also, apparently, we got into what in Scotland is termed a "rammy" with our neighbours in Second Life, ACE, the Uni's school of Arts, Culture and sonething beginning with "e", who would not remove their big pile of virtual crap next to the Second Life Mangement School. My boss threw all the toys out of the pram and said that if they thought it was a cute postmodernist point to make the uni's presence on second life look like a cyber-breakers-yard and the other depts, who did not have to exist next to this mess, thought it was cool, then why should we put effort in. I did point out that in all the issues raised with Education I had, in spite of his anger management issues, been able to negotiate acceptable compromises, but he just wanted to go over to their office and whack them. "They can stick that in their post-Barthist World-order", he said. . To be fair, the problem with ACE is that they actually want (love?) to stand up in front of audiences and say "We are are proud that ACE's bit of Second Life looks like a tip", as they did in a seminar before Chrstmas, but no-one in this uni has the gall to tell them that this is not supportive of the uni's involvement. I was told that if that was their attitude the whole lot of them could taking a running jump: why should we do anything to make Edinburgh's presence in SL look better and then have everyone clap along with the idea that it should look like a mess?
So I reasonably thought that Second Life was so much last year... we are now into 2008, with its blank calendar pages rolling before us like the Russian steppes, but these things come back to bite us. So now, I learn, the management school's strategy is that the building on the main island is on hold and we (I?) should now promote the activities in Vue NW, where I am now told we have developed a management simulation. Bloody marvellous... I cant bloody wait.
I suppose this will become another boondoggle to keep people from actually doing something so coarse as actually teaching students about management...
Sod the lot of them I say... fortunately, despite my colleagues always making a big thing about the sociological impacts of blogging, they dont read these things.
To state the glaringly obvious, the Management School lost interest in Second Life because we (they?) could not see how it would actually support our teaching. Also, apparently, we got into what in Scotland is termed a "rammy" with our neighbours in Second Life, ACE, the Uni's school of Arts, Culture and sonething beginning with "e", who would not remove their big pile of virtual crap next to the Second Life Mangement School. My boss threw all the toys out of the pram and said that if they thought it was a cute postmodernist point to make the uni's presence on second life look like a cyber-breakers-yard and the other depts, who did not have to exist next to this mess, thought it was cool, then why should we put effort in. I did point out that in all the issues raised with Education I had, in spite of his anger management issues, been able to negotiate acceptable compromises, but he just wanted to go over to their office and whack them. "They can stick that in their post-Barthist World-order", he said. . To be fair, the problem with ACE is that they actually want (love?) to stand up in front of audiences and say "We are are proud that ACE's bit of Second Life looks like a tip", as they did in a seminar before Chrstmas, but no-one in this uni has the gall to tell them that this is not supportive of the uni's involvement. I was told that if that was their attitude the whole lot of them could taking a running jump: why should we do anything to make Edinburgh's presence in SL look better and then have everyone clap along with the idea that it should look like a mess?
So I reasonably thought that Second Life was so much last year... we are now into 2008, with its blank calendar pages rolling before us like the Russian steppes, but these things come back to bite us. So now, I learn, the management school's strategy is that the building on the main island is on hold and we (I?) should now promote the activities in Vue NW, where I am now told we have developed a management simulation. Bloody marvellous... I cant bloody wait.
I suppose this will become another boondoggle to keep people from actually doing something so coarse as actually teaching students about management...
Sod the lot of them I say... fortunately, despite my colleagues always making a big thing about the sociological impacts of blogging, they dont read these things.
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