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.