Roll Call 2 Class #11 - John Hardiman

Roll Call 1 Class #11 - John Hardiman

The Google Doc that Yulian Created to help with scripting

This is the Google Document which Yulian Created to assist with Scripting in Rocket World.

Annimating the solar system in Rocket World

We animated the solar system in the Stars section of Rocket World EMMS that was created by professor Walsh's Computer Graphics Class.  Notice the green sphere to the right of the sun.  this is in a fixed location.  We are waiting for a classmate to delete this but it does help to show the movement of the other planets by creating a second reference point

Still Unable to avvess the google Doc referenced in the assignment list

I completed My Course Evaluations - John Hardiman

Since there was no screen to indicate the course evaluations were completed, I included a screen capture of the listing of my courses and the message I got when the evaluation was already complete and I tried to access it again.

Answered Questions ABout Video Game Addiction on the IED Forum

I asnwered questin about gamind addiction on the Immersive Education IED Forum

Video Gaming Addiction Panel Discussion

I participated along with classmates and educators in a panel discussion on video game addiction.  It was a very engaging talk with lots of personal experiences shared.

Interview with Arron Walsh of Grid Institute

I  read and interview on Terra Nova with Professor Aaron Walsh, a programmer and instructor at Woods College of Advancing Studies at Boston College He is working to develop a virtual reality educational platform that is standards based called Immersive Education.
Professor Walsh began his work in  VR development in the early '90s while running the Advanced Technology Center (ATC) at Boston College and spent the majority of his time developing international standards for 3D and virtual reality as chairman of related Web3D Consortium and Moving Picture Expert Group (MPEG).  He is now with the Media Grid and Immersive Education.
He talks about the positives and negatives of virtual reality learning as well as the growing addiction to virtual reality, which he terms”Immersive illness”.  The article speaks about Second Life as a possible future platform for Immersive Learning. And how the hardware limitation of this type of environment are becoming a thing of the past.
This is a link to the full transcript of the interview: http://terranova.blogs.com/terra_nova/2007/05/teaching_in_vr_.html

Creating my personal avatar-John Hardiman

I started off taking at picture of myself and cloned it at http://evolver.com

I modified the face.

changed more facial features

Selected the eyes

chose a hair style and color

picked my wardobe

and packed on some winter insulation

Avatar Animation

WOW My Addiction

.......................... WoW My Addiction ....................
Professor Aaron E. Walsh notes: This was written by "John" in July 2007. John was a student of mine. He was in my Discovering Computer Graphics course at Boston College http://immersiveeducation.org/@/bc/, and was much more advanced than the other students. When I asked why he was taking this class, when he clearly had enough experience to take one of my more advanced classes, he explained that he had no choice: he had failed out of school, and was starting over. After we talked more as the semester went he explained why. I asked him to write it down for future students. Here’s what he wrote in one sitting about why he was “starting over”:


World of Warcraft (WoW): My Addiction

I've played various MMORPG games over the years, some being fairly addicting, some not even catching my interest, but one stands out above the rest as the most addicting and life consuming thing I've ever encountered in my life. You might have guessed it already, but that game is World of Warcraft, a game that I would recommend everyone stays away from. 

Like most addictions, it didn't start out that way. It was just harmless fun; I'd log on for a few hours every day and level my character, talk to some friends I had on the game... it was nothing that took me away from other things. I was in high school at the time, and was still managing to get on with my work at first, even though that was a struggle in itself sometimes, and I kept in touch with my friends and saw them regularly.

At first I was surprised at how little interest I had in playing the game for long stints, as I had heard some things about how enticing and gripping the game was, and the first few months were fine, until I started to get near the level cap. Approaching the maximum level I began to play the game more and more, as reaching the end game content opened up a whole new world. I became involved with a hardcore raiding guild, competing to be the best guild on the server, and it all went from there.

The first thing that changed was that I now had raiding times to meet every weekday evening in addition to the gold farming I had to do during the day in order to be able to afford all the potions

and items I needed to raid, and somehow, my guilds progression through the bosses in the game became the most important thing to me in my life, and I slowly started to phase out my friends. At this point I was still going to school, so between the school day and the game, I had no time for anything else.

Contrary to what people might think, I didn't lack a social life at all, even without seeing or talking to any of my friends from school. In fact, it was quite the opposite, I had a whole new group
of friends... in World of Warcraft. Now I didn't even have to leave my room to hang out with my friends, I could just pop on my headset and hang out with them in the game.

Now, to rewind a bit, I remember when I was creeping up on the level cap, and my parents were beginning to get concerned with how much I was playing the game, I kept telling them that it would be all over soon. Heck, even I thought it would! Little did I know, the game would be even more demanding of me after that.

I wanted to be the best, I wanted to have the best items, I wanted to have the most gold. I wanted to be popular with the people on my server, I wanted to be known. I wanted to top the damage meters on every single fight. I don't know why, I can't explain it, but the game was just the most important thing to me, I wanted to do nothing else. I wanted to play every single day all day and night and would do whatever I could to keep myself awake and at the computer. Whatever it took, energy drinks, amphetamines, I would keep myself awake for hours on end, not getting any exercise and rarely leaving the house.

The more and more I played, the more and more things I felt compelled to spend my time doing inside the game. It seems that they create the game in such a way that even though there technically is a way to have the ultimate everything and clear all the bosses etc.. etc...... By the time you get close they add more content to the game to keep you going, its a never ending story. I would pick up my prescription for amphetamines just so I could stay up all night farming items to sell for gold, I wanted to have the best enchantments and to get all the rare random world drops... and so much more. I completely stopped going to school, completely stopped seeing my friends.... and the most worrying fact was that I didn't really care. It just stole my heart and mind from everything else, gave me a false sense that everything was okay and that I wasn't ruining the rest of my life. I don't know what would have happened if I hadn't stopped, I had stopped going to school and cut off social contact with everyone but the people I knew in the game, it was like a world within itself. I didn't even want to stop until I had a taste of life without it, a taste that was forced, however. If I hadn't been forced to live somewhere without a computer I don't know what would have happened.
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