Week 15: Final Week

  I submitted my student evaluation form, and I informed my site supervisor that she had to fill out and submit an evaluation form for site supervisors. I will be waiting to hear from either my site supervisor or Professor Franks whether the supervisor has completed and submitted her form.

  As I stated in the form I filled out and submitted, doing an internship for The Association of Virtual Worlds is good for graduate students that are first time interns. The work is similar to all other college course work in that it is basically research and writing. The only things a graduate intern needs to know to work for the Association is how to do internet research and write. The intern should therefore have enough college experience to feel confident and comfortable enough to work for the Association. I am sure most virtual internships include some research and writing, but more experienced interns should seek internships that may be different from their previous college course work and thus be more challenging.

  I completed a final report for my site supervisor, which focuses on the relationship between technological trends and money. These trends include virtual currency, social media, internet marketing, online gaming, and the connection between mobile devices and internet marketing. The report basically is about how these trends may create positive economic changes for businesses.

  If SLIS continues offering The Association of Virtual Worlds to interns, my advice to the interns is to try and improve their internet research and writing skills, and also become more skilled and confident to work independently, since the intern works alone and is not always supervised.

 

Week 14

  I have been given a final assignment from my site supervisor, which is a report on the money aspect of trends. It is to be done the same way as my report on mobile technology earlier in the semester, with regards to method and formatting. I will collect and put together news blogs about the money aspect of trends, and evaluate them the same way I evaluated the news blogs on mobile technology in the earlier report.
 
  However, I am completing the Final Report for Professor Franks this week, or by Thursday morning to get it done as soon as possible, to make sure it does not conflict with all my other work, to relieve stress, and to take a weight off of Professor Franks. Therefore, the final assignment from my site supervisor, which is essentially the same as my earlier mobile report and fulfills the same learning outcome, will not be included in the Final Report for Professor Franks. I have already met all the requirements for the Final Report, including meeting the number of required hours (I worked 137 hrs., which meets the requirement of 135 for the course). This brings me to one situation that some virtual interns may be unable to avoid. It is important to get the Final Report completed as soon as possible, but even when it is done and it has been turned in at an appropriately early time and not too close to the May 15 deadline, a site supervisor might have a final assignment to give the intern, in which case the intern will not be able to add it to the Final Report.

 On a note regarding Learning Outcomes, an intern will of course have a set of learning outcomes at the start of a semester. However, there is no way for them to yet know exactly what types of assignments their site supervisor will give them. A site supervisor will likely give them assignments that will change their learning outcomes over the course of the semester. This is especially true if the site supervisor has never worked with interns in the SLIS program and therefore neither the SLIS department nor the site supervisor have a full professional understanding of each other. Furthermore, the SLIS department could have information about a site, which interns are supposed to use to create their learning outcomes. However, over the course of the semester, the site supervisor may make changes to their policies regarding interns and the work involved in the site, which will lead the intern to make changes to their learning outcomes.

  Although I had to make some changes to my three learning outcomes, I felt that I fulfilled them with the assignments I was given. I did learn what I needed to know about new virtual technologies, mobile technologies, and virtual and 3D environments in general.

Week 13

  I am still waiting for my site supervisor to give me feedback on my latest project on new virtual worlds and the latest companies who have created them. Although I have not had any experience using virtual and 3D worlds, I did learn much about them including their purposes, the many types available, and the people that use them.

  I went to websites for many virtual environments and the companies creating them, gathered screenshots of their logos and basic information about them, which will be placed into upcoming editions to The Consumer Guide To Virtual Worlds and The Enterprise Guide To Virtual Worlds. Readers of the guides that are members of The Association of Virtual Worlds and other individuals and companies can learn about these new virtual and 3D worlds so they know what virtual technology is now available that can benefit them professionally, improve their businesses, and also entertain them whenever they use virtual and 3D worlds for play.

  Virtual and 3D environments are now able to provide people with tourism locations, allow them to visit virtual versions of cities such as GeoSimPhilly that is a virtual Philadelphia or Wild Style City that is a virtual San Francisco enabling users to tag virtual graffiti; but also to allow people around the world to interact, make friends, play games together, create 2D and 3D content, and share music and music related information.

  Readers of the upcoming guides will know that there are many virtual and 3D worlds that can appeal to all sorts of individuals and companies, and which ones are intended for them and that will best meet their professional and entertainment needs.
 

Completed New Assignment

 This week I completed my new assignment for The Association of Virtual Worlds. The assignment was to locate any virtual worlds and companies that create virtual and 3D immersive environments that were not listed in the previous editions of The Consumer Guide To Virtual Worlds and the Enterprise Guide To Virtual Worlds. These new virtual worlds and companies will therefore be added to upcoming and revised editions of both guides.

  I found some new virtual worlds and companies by researching websites that introduce and list all the latest virtual worlds and companies that create virtual worlds, which are recommended to those interested in such technology. There are many new types of virtual worlds that allow their users to visit U.S. and foreign towns and islands, make friends, play games with people either all over the world or locally, share knowledge and passion for music, and create graffiti. I do not really use virtual environments, but I learned a lot about their purposes, capabilities, and basically the various types that are available to people around the world. Some of these virtual worlds are open to people around the world, while others are intended for people in particular countries or towns. Nevertheless, they all aim to give people the closest possible experiences of being in distant locations or doing things in far away places. There is really not that much of a difference between these virtual worlds; one virtual environment for instance allows users to examine graffiti in San Francisco, which gives them the feeling that they are in San Francisco; while another virtual world allows people to play games on an island, which gives them the feeling of being on that island. It is all about giving people the feeling as best as possible of visiting a particular place that they are not really physically at.

  I have not yet gotten feedback on my assignment, but I hope these worlds and companies will be useful for the upcoming editions of the guides.

Week 11: New Assignment

  I received a new assignment from my site supervisor, which is to help her update two guides by The Association of Virtual Worlds. One guide is called Consumer Guide to Virtual Worlds and the other is titled, Enterprise Guide to Virtual Worlds. The assignment is to do Internet research to find both virtual worlds and names of companies that supply virtual or 3D immersive environments that are new and were not listed in the previous editions of the two guides. Once I find the latest virtual worlds or new companies that supply such environments, I will do a write up of them which will include the names of the worlds or companies, but also links to the web sites for those virtual worlds or companies. These write ups will be added to updated and upcoming editions of the guides.

Week 10

 There is not much to report this week since my site supervisor is currently working on my next assignment and is getting it prepared. She will send me my new assignment by e-mail at the end of this week.

  My site supervisor was originally going to assign me a new project the week before Spring Break, but decided to hold off since I was busy with cataloging midterm exams. She decided to wait until the first week of April to create my new assignment, which I will be expecting by Monday.

 

Week 9

  This week I completed my report on mobile technology for The Association of Virtual Worlds. My site supervisor gave me much positive feedback and thought it was "excellent," but wanted me to make changes to my bibliography. She wanted the changes to better meet the bibliography format needed for the report. Originally, I had listed my site supervisor as the author of the blog posts on mobile technology I used as references. I instead followed my site supervisor's advice by removing her name as the author of the information and replaced it with the original sources of the information as the authors, followed by the dates of publications, titles, and quick links to the blog posts made by my site supervisor. I removed other things (some APA formatting) that would be more appropriate for graduate course term papers, and added whatever my site supervisor wanted and that would be better for business reports.

  My advice to other virtual interns, certainly future interns, is when they have a site supervisor who has them do a paper or report, that they must closely and clearly communicate with their site supervisor to learn about how they should format and organize their work (such as title page first, table of contents second, conclusion last, or a particular order of bibliographical information). The intern should know that a site supervisor may not want the same type of formatting or organization that their graduate professors want, and that the formatting and organization of reports may have to adhere to the types of businesses they are interning for.

  Overall, it was a successful assignment and my site supervisor appreciated the work I put into it, that I had closely followed her rules, that I made some good cases in favor of some of the mobile technologies, but also that I added a section on negative aspects to mobile technology like cyber bullying and techno stress. I focused on both positives and some negatives so that I would avoid bias. I know my next assignment will be the first week of April, so I will certainly be interested to see what my site supervisor will have me do and learn next.

Week 8

  There is not as much to report this week. I completed my report on mobile technology earlier in the week and placed it into my site supervisor's dropbox. I did receive some positive feedback from my site supervisor through email, and she said she skimmed through the report and that it looked "most impressive." She also stated that she will take a closer look at it during the weekend, and if she has any problems or wants me to make a few changes, I will gladly do so. I feel quite good about the report as I followed her instructions as closely as possible by putting it in the correct format, such as starting out with a title page, and then continuing with a table of contents, introduction, observation and analysis, conclusion, and bibliography with all 96 blog posts I examined for the report. Furthermore, my observations section was done in the way she wanted in that I wrote about topics on mobile technology that was relevant to the blogs such as mobile trends, how mobile technology can change the relationship between customers and businesses, children, the Internet, education, and so forth. I focused on how mobile technology can create positive changes for businesses and their customers, but I did not ignore the negative aspects of mobile technology such as how it deepens social problems for people such as the issue concerning cyber bullying, or how it can cause techno stress.

  I believe I learned a lot about how companies can improve their relationship with consumers through mobile technology, and also about all the mobile advancements that have made significant changes for businesses and the lives of consumers. Hopefully, my site supervisor will give me more feedback about the report by Monday.

Week 7: Continuing To Work On My Mobile Report

  I worked independently this week on my mobile report for The Association of Virtual Worlds. I have not had contact with my site supervisor since last weekend, so perhaps she has been too busy to check on my progress; although she gave me up to a month to complete the report, and there are two more weeks left according to the time she gave me to finish it. Actually, I think I have adapted quite well as an independent worker and without much supervision. I feel I have done well working on my own, and perhaps that is because of years of experience as a college student. Library and Information Science is my third degree and second masters, and the work I have done for The Association of Virtual Worlds is very much like the work I have done before in college, certainly in this library science program. So perhaps I don't feel I need constant supervision. I also trust that my site supervisor will in fact contact me soon to check on my progress, and I can easily contact her at any time if I have questions even though she is busy.
 
I have collected and put together 96 of her blog posts about mobile technology dating from September 1, 2011 to February 21, 2012, and have done an analysis on many of them. I have observed and analyzed new mobile technologies and discussed how businesses and their customers can use them. My report informs them on how other industries have used new mobile technologies, and have given them ideas on how they can use these technologies to improve their business and relations with their customers.
 
Although I have not been a heavy user of mobile technologies, and only use my cell phone at the most important times rather than constantly, I am certainly learning a lot of new things about mobile technologies and all the interesting ways they are being used between companies and their customers. It is kind of a new language to me, but I have tried understanding these technologies the best I can do. 

Week 6

  This week, I started work on my mobile technology report for The Association of Virtual Worlds. The purpose of this report is to inform businesses and consumers about the recent state of mobile technologies and how they can benefit from using them. A big part of this report focuses on how businesses can use mobile technologies to not only survive economically, but to compete with one another for both consumers and skills in using the latest mobile technologies.

  I find the report challenging because it focuses on business, which I know nothing about. My first two college degrees were in history, so I have no training in business. I am literally writing about how businesses should think, develop mobile skills, compete in the workplace, survive economically, attract consumers and develop working relationships with them, and how certain mobile and Internet technologies can be used by them to benefit their business as well as their consumers. If I had majored in business, I could have probably written more interesting things about how companies can successfully compete economically, learn new technologies, and understand consumers. All I can do is try the best to understand these mobile technologies and how they may benefit companies and their customers.

  This report is intended for businesses, but I am hoping it can simply get them interested in new mobile technologies. I doubt my report will give them a full understanding on how mobile technology can affect them in the current economic, business, and technological climate.

Starting a New Assignment

  This past week I did my final transcription of an interview, and started my new project. The final interview I transcribed was one where my supervisor interviewed Hiten Shah who has done Internet marketing work. Shah discussed social media, but argued that the term is outdated. He stated that what is important is how Facebook or Google search results can reveal much about human psychology and behavior. The fact that the Internet allows us to socialize is less important than how the Internet, through what is normally called social media, can show and teach us much about human beings and how they behave. I think Shah was arguing that the Internet perfectly mimics how people behave in the real physical world. In other words, people often behave on the Internet the way they do in the physical world. Perhaps that is true on Twitter and Facebook as people interact with friends, family, and some well known Internet personalities they follow. But I do not think it is entirely true on many Internet message boards where strangers communicate and behave in ways they may not in the real physical world (such as going on the Internet Movie Database and making racist or sexist remarks they may not towards people they speak to face to face). Nevertheless, librarians could use Facebook and Twitter to learn about the people they serve and how to meet their information needs.

  The new project I started this week is a report on mobile technology, which is designed to inform members of The Association of Virtual Worlds about mobile trends, and any news related to mobile technology. So far I have cut and pasted into a Microsoft Word Document all my supervisor's blog posts about mobile technology. In the next couple of weeks, I will be doing an observation and analysis of all the major mobile trends, and will do a conclusion and support it with references to the blog posts.

Week 4

  This was the final week of transcribing interviews. The purpose of transcribing interviews was to give me an understanding of virtual worlds, the virtual worlds industry, mobile technology, 3D immersive technology, and the general purpose of The Association of Virtual Worlds.

  This past week I have transcribed interviews with June Herold who discussed how younger business people can help introduce virtual technology to midsize companies, and Jessica Butcher who discussed how to help customers and businesses gain a greater understanding of new technologies. Basically, they focused on how to introduce new technologies to not only businesses and their customers, but to our culture. The interviews remind us that we have much work to do with introducing new technologies to information professionals and libraries.

  Next week, I will learn about how the news aspect of The Association of Virtual Worlds works, and will be putting together news related blogs for their customers.

Update for Week 3

  With the exception of a couple more interviews to transcribe, I am almost reaching a new level in the internship for The Association of Virtual Worlds. Later in the week, or perhaps the following week, my job will be to collect and put together blogs written by members of the Association. I will be putting them together in a particular order, most likely by date; although my supervisor will explain more about this task during our next telephone meeting.
 
The two interviews I transcribed this past week were more on the corporate perspective. One was an interview with Matthew Warneford who specializes in virtual products that will help companies market, advertise, and promote their business. The other interview was with Scott Kellner who has helped companies set up virtual environments to enable people to have live chats and forums with professionals, to help people learn about foreign or third world cultures such as those in Africa, and to allow business professionals like sales people get together and learn about new products. Warneford and Kellner in other words, help companies set up virtual environments so they can become knowledgeable and skilled in the latest products, and thus be competitive in the workplace.
 
I do like the idea of libraries using virtual environments to allow librarians to communicate and collaborate with the public, and also librarians using virtual environments to work together on all aspects of their business from discussing and creating library policies to collection development. I worry, however, that many libraries may not have the budgets for virtual environments. In these harder economic times, libraries have more important things to worry about such as developing and managing their collections, meeting the specific needs of the communities they serve as inexpensively as possible, struggling to hold onto their staffs considering all the layoffs that have occurred in recent years, and maintaining an environment and facilities that are user friendly and enable the public to easily navigate through the library and find the information that meets their needs.

Christopher Zeidel- February 10, 2012

Blog Post for Week 2

  My supervisor, another intern, and myself had a telephone conference at the start of the week. The conference was meant to discuss the week's assignments, in which I was given the assignments to transcribe two more interviews for an upcoming book by The Association of Virtual Worlds, and a brief discussion about what we interns are hoping to learn from this internship, and why we wanted to intern for the Association of Virtual Worlds. I wanted to intern for this organization because libraries can use virtual worlds, 3D technology, and all technologies discussed in the two interviews I transcribed during Week 2 to connect with the populace.

  The two interviews I transcribed were one where my supervisor interviewed Brenda Young, and the other in which my supervisor interviewed Al Caudullo. The Brenda Young interview was about how to integrate technological innovations into corporate business, and the Al Caudullo interview focused on how to integrate 3D technology into business.
 
  Brenda Young has a company called The Marvay Group, and she does consulting in marketing, social media, strategy development, and innovation incorporation. Her argument is that companies, or anyone, need to embrace mobile technology to get ahead in the world such as using smart phones and IPads to communicate with their customers and work with others within their companies or organizations.

  Al Caudullo makes 3D documentaries and argues that companies should use 3D technology to give customers ideas and feelings about how things work. For example, a restaurant could allow people to view 3D versions of whatever food is on their menu to simply get them interested in the food and give them appetites for it. At one point during the interview, Caudullo described an incident in which people in Bangkok's Chinatown District viewed 3D images of fish, and developed cravings for real fish. Another example would be that apartment owners could give people 3D tours of apartments so they know what the apartments look like inside before deciding to move into them.

  I imagine that librarians could give people 3D tours of a library's collection and space, so they know whether or not the library will meet their information needs. Furthermore, librarians could connect with library users and other librarians through mobile technology to strengthen a library's place within the community. Library's are of course using this technology, so I find interning for the Association useful since it is most likely that I and future interns will have to use such technology as librarians; assuming that libraries can fit 3D technology into their budgets.

Christopher Zeidel, February 4, 2012

Assignment 1: Nic Mitham Interview

  My first internship assignment was to transcribe an interview. The interview is about how businesses can use virtual worlds to figure out how to work in the real world. For instance, a corporation can use a virtual oil rig to figure out how to set up sleeping quarters in a real and tangible oil rig. In other words, the interviewer and her guest advocated the idea that virtual and real worlds are connected.

  I had to download the dropbox service, which allows computer users to share information like Microsoft Word documents, photos, or videos. I am just learning how to use this service, and have yet to understand how others gain access to my work.

  I did transcribe the interview, and placed the transcribed version into a document that went into the dropbox service. The challenging thing about transcribing this particular interview, was that the person interviewed (Nic Mitham) stated near the beginning that he preferred to ramble, so not everything was stated clearly and articulately. This along with his heavy British accent made it difficult at times to completely understand what he was saying. Nevertheless, I transcribed the interview as accurately as I could, including spoken words, and the ideas and arguments presented.

Christopher Zeidel- January 28, 2012