This was presented by Sheila Webber (Sheila Yoshikawa in Second Life) at the Seminar "The Nature of Virtuality" on October 12th, 2009, at Sheffield University UK. This was the first in the ESRC Research Seminar series "Children's and young people's digital literacies in virtual online spaces" http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fass/events/digital-literacies/programme.htm

1. Adventures in
Second Life:
a personal history
Sheila Yoshikawa/
Sheila Webber
October 2009

2. Evidence
• 1,000+ photos on Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/23396182@N00/) +
a couple of thousand more unpublished
• 294 posts on Yoshikawa blog; 170 fashion blog posts; 20+ reflective
entries in MOLE e-portfolio
• Extensive “raw” chatlogs + edited chatlogs of many of the 50+ meetings I
have organised in SL + contributions to other published chatlogs
• Profile postings in various social network sites
• 2 video interviews in SL (http://infolitischool.pbworks.com/Videos+about+the+island)
• Contributions as SW to 6 virtualworldwatch surveys and podcast
interview (http://virtualworldwatch.net/)
• Photo essay for Immersive experience conference at Surrey University
http://immersiveexperience.pbworks.com/My+Second+Life
• PowerPoints of SW presentations on Slideshare & video/audio records
• My land in SL

3. September 2009
3 May 2007
15 June 2007
My first SL
Relationship:
with a piece
of corporate
merchandise

4. November 2008
7 June 2007
Sept 2009
November 2008

5. 4 October 2007
August 2007

6. September 2009

7. Computers
Scientist
Sci-fi/ Fantasy/ anime
Actress
Clothes
School choices
Gaming
University
1980 Work
1987
Princess
Home &
Information garden
Artist
Information
1994-2000 Literacy
Photography
Author
Writing & publishing

8. Beginnings

10. Reflection: ZOMG this is so like
my first weeks at university when
I wrote loads of 7 page letters to
my best friend

11. 17 May 2007

12. Incidents and accidents
http://www.wordle.net/create

13. Stories about
• Appearance
• Disappearance
• Animals
• People
• Building things
• Buying things
• Interactions between animals/people/things
• Conferences and discussions
• Travelling, dancing, flying
• Enthusiasms
• Embarrassments
• Frustrations
• Realisations
• ………. Myself, my projects

14. Stories mostly not about …
• Students (ethical decision)
• Anything can’t be bothered posting
• Things I think would upset people I know
… therefore …
blog becomes slightly blander as time goes on
• Increasingly, issue of how/whether I present the
blog in connection with “serious” educational
practice

15. The curse of the butterflies, pts 1 & 2

18. Forms of shopping

22. Literacy

23. Most used words chatted in SL
• lol
• omg
• ;-)
• teh (MS PowerPoint corrected that to The, SL
doesn’t)
[2009/10/11 9:36] Sheila Yoshikawa: we both chose teh 99
[2009/10/11 9:36] YYYYY: XXX also is involved with the elearning MSc
[2009/10/11 9:36] XXX: Van's looking good YYYYY :)
[2009/10/11 9:36] Sheila Yoshikawa: i always like th ebits of flake
Now find that I always have to go back through
emails to correct spelling & capitalisation

24. Forms of reading & saying

26. [2009/10/01 21:54] Kunstkammer Meeting Tree - Grey: Say '/423pollen' for particle
effects, or '/423nopollen' to stop particle effects.
[2009/10/01 22:01] Failed to place object at specified location. Please try again.
[2009/10/01 22:07] SG is Online
[2009/10/01 22:10] CC is Offline
[2009/10/01 22:11] CC is Online
[2009/10/01 22:15] RS is Online
[2009/10/01 22:25] RS is Offline
[2009/10/01 22:27] Broom Ride 2.11 whispers: pause for 3.000000 seconds
[2009/10/01 22:30] AC is Offline
[2009/10/01 22:30] You decline 'watermelon big(attach)' (
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Infolit%20iSchool/30/27/21 ) from Let's eat the watermelon!
Pose.
[2009/10/01 22:31] GM is Online
[2009/10/01 22:32] GM is Offline
[2009/10/01 22:33] WhiteBoard (n): This is the Last Slide
[2009/10/01 22:33] WhiteBoard (n): Showing Image 5/6 - librarians

27. [2009/10/01 21:47] KW: hi Sheila, my husband and I own the Timbucks
Educators Sim and I understand you may be looking for land to host the
Literacy week Nov 9-15 in sl.
[2009/10/01 21:48] KW : we have an area you may be interested in and
we also own a homstead sim next to Timbucks for my husband's
consulting business.
[2009/10/01 21:49] KW : he's a professor at a University in California,
and I teach assisitive technology software programs to K-12 students/
educators in Ontario, Canada =)
[2009/10/01 21:49] KW : here's our landmark for you to check our the
sim at your convenience
[2009/10/01 21:51] Sheila Yoshikawa: Hi, thank you. I will check that
out. We haven't a specific need at the moment, but some people have
been discussing builds that could do with some more space (i.e. prims)
[2009/10/01 21:51] Sheila Yoshikawa: Thank you for the offer, I will take
a look.
[2009/10/01 21:52] KW : ok... thanks... =)
-- Instant message logging enabled --

29. Local
chat
appears
in this
corner
Avatar names have been covered up, for privacy

33. Forms of web writing

34. Iheartsl.com community blog
About 62 posts, as Sheila Yoshikawa
Total no. of posts on iheartsl blog is c. 16,500

36. http://lowprimstyle.blogspot.com/
Just over 100 posts, mostly posting as Dimitrova Shostakovich, my no. 1 alt

37. Information Literacy
“Information literacy is the adoption of appropriate
information behaviour to identify, through whatever
channel or medium, information well fitted to
information needs, leading to wise and ethical use
of information in society.”
(Johnston & Webber, 2004)

39. Exploring information literacy
• Students researching information behaviour and
(this year) information literacy
• Advocating information literacy in SL
• My conception of IL already based around holistic
conception of information and information
behaviour: SL illuminating rather transforming
experience of IL

40. Digital literacies

41. Photoshop
Common with people who blog/create e.g. “Q: Have you found, developed or improved any skills
because of SL? A: SL photography has forced me to expand my photoshop ninja training.”
(Lutetia, A. (2009) Interview: Guage Laville. 11 October. http://analutetia.com/blog/interview-gauge-laville/#more-8502)

42. Flickr

43. Slideshare

44. Wikis

45. Ning

46. Twitter

47. Consciously refraining from social literacy practice
of commenting

48. Conscious subversion of information management practices

49. Where will the journey end?

50. Produced using http://wigflip.com/automotivator/ motivational poster creator

51. Sheila Webber
s.webber@shef.ac.uk
http://information-literacy.blogspot.com/
Sheila Yoshikawa
http://adventuresofyoshikawa.blogspot.com/
Powerpoint at: http://www.slideshare.net/sheilawebber/
Sheila Webber, 2008