Flavour of the week: SL
Tuesday, May 20th, 2008SL seems to be the flavour of the week for Richard Aedy, the presenter of Life Matters, a daily morning program on ABC Radio National. He did a segment on SL on two consecutive days: the first one was on the educational aspect, and the other one was of a more risqué nature.
The University of Queensland (UQ) has become the first sandstone university in Australia to expand into SL, according to Richard. It has leased an island for five years at the price of US$10,000. A “Religion Bazaar” will be set up on the island, where “students will be able to become characters or avatars in various places of worship, including a Mosque, Freemasons’ Lodge, Christian Church and Hindu Temple”.
While UQ may be the first of the ‘Group of Eight’ to venture into the virtual world, it is not the “pioneer” institution to do so, as pointed out by Richard; Deakin University, Monash University, Swinburne University of Technology, and University of Southern Queensland, amongst others, have already had a virtual presence in SL long before the newly-introduced UQ’s “Religion Bazaar”.
The segment of a more risqué nature that was broadcast this morning was nothing insightful – it was more like an orientation session, with a SL resident giving a chronicle of her avatar and SL experiences, including the romance and other R-rated activities which I will not go into details here.
To listen to these two segements, click on the link below:
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/lifematters/stories/2008/2248858.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/lifematters/stories/2008/2219422.htm
