English 680V: Visual Rhetoric in a Technological Age (Purdue)

Here's a story from the Chronicle that will interest you Second-Lifers:

http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/index.php?id=1949

Although this doesn't deal specifically with our project's approach to Second Life, I thought this article on Second Life as a virtual pyramid scheme might be of interest. Apparently this blogger finds Second Life to be particularly offensive and has posted quite a few entries that attempt to disparage the virtual world. The article referenced above consists primarily of a statement made by an "anonymous" financial advisor. I'm finding the ethos here questionable, particularly given the blog's stated purpose as a gossip column for the Silicon Valley folks. However, I do think that the blogosphere "controversy" over Second Life (what blogger James Au Wagner calls the "Second Life backlash") bears some consideration. Wagner has some interesting things to say with regard to the ratio between in-world experience and number and degree of complaints, which seem to be inversely proportionate. Blogger Mark Wallace critiques the critique here and here's where I fell down the rabbit-hole into crazy blogosphere controversy. (If you're teaching business writing, this might be fun to discuss with your students.)

Watch this video, put the cheesy synth pop out of your head and consider it, not as a cute gimmic, but as a prophesy of the future and past of our educational techniques.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBvaHZIrt0o

It reminds me of old PBS programing I watched as a child, the sort of thing where we'd go behind the scenes of a factory and they'd show us how cheese was made or how books were published. I loved those shows. Indeed, I think they may have had a great influence on the curiousity I enjoy today.