Crab: Tourism studies and virtual research, As a film-realistic 3D interactive build-able virtual earth develops, I hope we as (STEM) researchers will all be able to add our data, pictures, videos, and languages even (and historically too)

Hi Nelson and All,

I'm glad there seems to be a fair amount of interest in an online component to your course - https://www.academia.edu/s/19ac1100ab - this autumn, Nelson and All! If we proceed with this online component in a few weeks, what you'll need is a gmail address and G+ page, as well as an avatar in Second Life which you can get here - secondlife.com/download - and then teleport here - http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Berkman/165/212/25 - (if we want to explore Harvard's virtual island and even build touristic objects, as well).

In terms of my virtual research, Tourism Studies, and this course, check out Harbin Hot Springs' Gate House in Google Street View / Earth / Maps here, and walk down the road to Middletown, California here, for example -

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Harbin+Hot+Springs/@38.785962,-122.651913,3a,75y,3.07h,90t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sZvCvdrcS5wPenGS_nB4JtA!2e0!4m2!3m1!1s0x0:0xde57c3ab0ecaa2c9!6m1!1e1

- and add some of your photos (I've added a photo here with the name "Helianth"), as Google Street View invites here (or to another part of the world where you do your tourism research) ... and per "ethno-wiki-virtual-world-graphy" (see this label here - http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/search/label/ethno-wiki-virtual-world-graphy). I'm planning to give a talk about this as method at the Tourism Studies Working Group on Friday, November 6th at 5pm at UC Berkeley in the Gifford Room, and will hopefully broadcast this video in a G+ Hangout too.

Besides publishing our Tourism Studies' papers in journals, we can also post them here - http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Tourism_Studies - as wiki.

As a film-realistic 3D interactive build-able virtual earth develops, I hope we as (STEM) researchers will all be able to add our data, pictures, videos, and languages even (and historically too). I think this real-time virtual earth (think Google Street View with SL plus) will become a very important site of Tourism Studies' academic research over time, and comparatively too.

Best, Scott
http://www.scottmacleod.com
https://twitter.com/scottmacleod


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Hi Nelson, Muzzo, Kathleen, Cecilia, Naomi, Hilary, Cele, I'd like to offer to facilitate access to your seminar online so people can participate in this course from where they are in the world. We could do this a) in Google group video Hangouts (where you could possibly give a talk for the first part of the class, which would be recorded and watched again in this course next year), and possibly also on b) Harvard's virtual island in Second Life with voice and text (where we might even each explore building a "marked site," to use Dean MacCannell's definition, and then visiting each others ' touristic destinations in this 3D interactive virtual world ). To get an idea of one way these interesting interactive "classrooms" would work, please see this course I'm currently teaching online - http://worlduniversityandschool.org/InfoTechNetworkSocGlobalUniv.html - on behalf of World University and School (which has a Tourism Studies' wiki subject page for open teaching and learning - http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Tourism_Studies - and for which WUaS hopes to hire graduate students and eventually faculty in the future). As I mentioned in my first post here, I'd like to explore further thinking through my second Harbin book in terms of tourism in your seminar. Would all of you be interested in participating in this course if it were online (as well as taking place at the same time out of the Anthropology department at Berkeley)? Best, Scott

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Great, Nelson! Thank you. I'm interested in both publishing my actual / virtual Harbin book in the context of your course. Harbin Hot Springs, after its recent devastating fire, lives on virtually in the book I plan to publish soon (I'm indexing it now), and I hope too now that I may be able to add many, many photographs as a anthropological record of "before the fire." And as my first Harbin book gets published (hopefully this autumn 2015 even) - http://www.scottmacleod.com/ActualVirtualHarbinBook.html - I'm hope that I can lay some groundwork for my second virtual Harbin book. I imagine actual Harbin will be rebuilt soon and become very differently beautiful again. Per my "The Making of Virtual Harbin as Ethnographic Field Site - https://youtu.be/3nhvcHw54GE - I hope this well happen realistically, interactively and in 3D for STEM research in Google Earth. I hope this will potentially dovetail beautifully and NEWLY with "The re-making or re-building of actual Harbin" for far-reaching parallel closures and re-openings anthropologically and tourism-wise too. Looking forward to exploring this in your course potentially. Thank you. Scott http://worlduniversityandschool.org/

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