Oman Tv

Second Life

I enjoyed my virtual trip to Berlin, but after I suffered from technical difficulties. After creating the account in second life website, I created an avator with the name Hakan Ghennyn. The reason for choosing this name was to hide my real identity to guarantee a full anonymous new character in the virtual life in Second Life. My second name is not in the list of the names provided in the registration stage, so I tried to select another name other than Fahad. I avoided including my name because it might release the region I am from. Fahad is mostly used in the Arabian Gulf Countries.



Downloading the Second Life software was not as difficult as running it. Because its environment is three dimentional it needs a big virtual memory and storage cabapilties of the user's computer. Unfortunately mine was struggling to run Second Life and it often stopped which led me to free half of the storage space in my labtop. This implies that enjoing the detailed three dimential environment of Second Life may prevent a huge number of our students from this experience because not everyone is capable of buying a labtop with the needed cabapilities.


Because I was eager to try Second Life experience, I freed half of the space in my laptob, and I realised it deserves it. It was one of my wishes to visit Germany and that came true; at least in Second Life. Berlin was my first German City to visit and I think it was the new part of it as was shown from the indication of New Berlin in the top bar of the application as we as the various locations under construction. Some of the places I visited there were Alexa Shopping Center, German Newbie Center and the White Cube Gallery- although I am certain wheather they exisit in reality or their only location is Second Life.



In addition to the 3 dimentional environment, there are communication tools to facilitate interaction in the application. The user can use the chat tools to get help or communicate with the others. Voice chat and gestures are also available and the user can join groups as well. Once I logged to Second Life for the first time, I was invited to join a group and had the right to accept and decline it.

I also offered to buy land in the virtual world the thing I lacked in reality. So, the software tries to immitate the real life, but sometimes the user can prove himselfe a social staus more than is capable to do in real life.

Second Life In Education:
Second life can be an ideal platform in education because of its ease to use, it 3 dimentional environment and the collaboration, and communication tools. I found in it the potential for allowing the students to create their own activities and engage in interactions with learners from different regions of the world.
One of the possible uses of it is virtual tours. Others tools like youtube and google maps can show virtual tours with no or limited interaction in addition to the lack of details and minmising learners' choice. In Second Life the learner can visit a city as I experienced and walk in its streets and even enters its building to see what is inside.
I am sure that there are other cabapilities fo education that the application can offer for paid subscriptions and more add ins can make it a superpowerful learning environment.

Google Maps

عرض خريطة بحجم أكبر

Reflection on a facebook group (Web 3.0) PART II

What does the discussion board reveal?

I followed a discussion thread in defining web 3.0. Some of the users were experts in technology in general, others were specialists in web based technologies who posted meaningful comments and whose contribution enriched the members' knowledge. As in every community, there were people who posted superficial comments which indicate their shallow knowledge in the field. They were engaged in the discussion only to establish a presence.

Members' expectations of joining the groups differ. Some of them work to provide the others with their personal thoughts of web 3.0. They base their contributions on no grounds and they are writing to impress the other members and to gain a social status in this e-community. Others, are deviating from the main lines adding commentaries or new posts that are irrelevant to the main goals of establishing the group. On the other hand, it is impressive to find dedicated members who do research in order to share their findings with the others. I found such kind of members giving the weight to the group, allowing it to survive and attracting more people to join the community.

Although I ended up more bewildered than before because of the huge range of explanations due to the fact that conclusions are impossible at the moment, web 3.0 technologies are not yet released, I felt no regret of joining the group. This feeling is the result of finding some people working sincerely to define or forecast some of the features of the new technology. In addition to the definition set up by the moderate of web 3.0 as three dimensional, some claimed to hear in conferences that this generation is the "me". A member called " Manoj Joshi", for instance, explained this me as " it's no longer about going to your business networking site or our business networking site. It's about creating my own virtual experience or virtual network, built by me, for me, and that is my view of my social universe. " Some definitions made me in doubt of previous understanding of web 2.0. The member, Jean Russel, defined web 1.0 as information, web 2.0 as participation and web 3.0 as collaboration. This response contradicts the previously mentioned definition-web 3.0 is me- and my knowledge that web 2.0 also involves cooperation.

Such groups that allow much space to personal opinions make the user unable to use them as credible source of information. But, what is useful about them is that using critical thinking in selecting the most meaningful contributions and following the links if provided to check for more trusted sources of information.

My Reflection on Facebook Groups:

Reflection on Facebook Groups: Web3.0 group

Why did I select this group?

I remember that Alan was interested in some information we found about web 3.0 when we were browsing for information about web 2.0 in class. Unfortunately, that article did not say more than that its writer is in bewilderment of what Web 3.0 is going to be about. My googling for other useful articles was in vain. Thus, it was a chance for me for both fulfilling the requirement of writing my reflection about facebook and finding useful stuff about Web 3.0. I used the search box by typing the words "Web 3.0" and I found this group entitled "Web 3.0." In the following lines I will mention some the impressions and findings.

General impression

There are around 13000 members who joined this group. I don't want to mention they were exactly 12930 because the number keeps in increasing. It seems that there were so many people from different backgrounds share the same interest. In the main page, there was a section that revealed that 4 of the group administrators are from Canada and one from India. From the names of two of the Canadian- located administrators it was suggested that they are originally from the middle east or the Indian sub continent.

The group in general is open to everyone interested, but what is really thrilling is that such a group gathered people from all over the world who can interact, socialize with experts in the field. Linking the members directly to the other members' profiles indicates that the user exists within a community which with no doubt offers the potential of making friendships with them and moves back and forth to the group.

By the way Ridvan was displayed as one of the 8 members in the group in the section that displays members. It was a good chance to start with someone I already knew to make a bigger network of friends. You might ask me then have you made others friends so far? My answer is no although others look nice from their pictures. So, this is another feature that facebook offers. I have subscribed to many Yahoo and Google groups in which persons are only represented in Nicknames while facebook group is more likely to mimic actual social networks.

Two more things about the main page. First, there is information displayed in the top left corner . It is one or two words description of web 1.0, web 2.0 and web 3.0 listing them in order. Web 1.0 was described as black and white, web 2.0 as color and web 3.0 as 3d. These descriptions are quite impressive and indicate to the new user that this group is well organized, brief and well structured.

The second thing is the recent news section just below the mentioned section. Contrary to the rest of the sections, this part gives a negative impression. The most recent news is dated back to October 15, 2007 which might deceive the user that this group is dead and not updated. To eliminate my worries, I checked the discussion board and realized that the group is active.

To be continued for more specific issues….

I know what I have mentioned is general about facebook groups, but I felt there is a need to describe my impressions.

Communication Technology For Oman Schools

MUSCAT - Hundred schools in the country will be provided with modern communication technology under an agreement signed here between the Information Technology Authority (ITA) and Huawei Tech Investment Oman.

As per terms of the memorandum of understanding, Huawei will contribute to the development of the educational system in the Sultanate through providing wireless LAN connectivity to 100 government schools. It will also transfer expertise to 35 Omani technicians for installation and equipment configuration.

Dr Salim Al Ruzaiqi, CEO of ITA and Leo Chen, General Manager, Huawei signed the agreement in the presence of Pan Weifang, ambassador of China to the Sultanate.

“Information Technology Authority is keen to support this mission of Huawei for the community of Oman and we are glad to act as facilitators between the government institutions and the private sector to enhance ICT facilities in the Sultanate under the ambitious eOman vision,” Ruzaiqi said.

Weifang lauded the rapid progress made by the country’s ICT sector through the efforts taken by ITA, and through this project, he added, Huawei was taking a solid step in promoting technology in Oman. “Huawei is an international company serving Oman for the last six years … We are keen to undertake this initiative and act as a catalyst in contributing to the development of the entire nation by leveraging the ICT sector,” Chen said.

Link:

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/darticlen.asp?xfile=data/middleeast/2009/February/middleeast_February37.xml&section=middleeast