In this eighth episode, we look back at the evolution of the ‘Technology and Society’ class over the last decade. John O’Connor, the course leader – known as Acuppa Tae in Second Life – introduced students to the ideas of Marshall McLuhan and Bernard Stiegler to promote discussion and inform their project work. The conversation, generated by Google NotebookLM from content on www.virtualenvironmentsmodule.com, is produced by Acuppa Tae in 2025.
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33:58
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33:58
Metaliteracy and Digital Citizenship
In this seventh episode, we reflect on the evolution of the ‘Metaliteracy and Digital Citizenship’ class over the years. Our guest speaker, Dr. Valerie Hill – known in Second Life as Valibrarian Gregg and author of Metamodernism and Changing Literacy: Emerging Research and Opportunities (2020) – examines how the post-Gutenberg Parenthesis reality is shaping contemporary life and education. The conversation, generated by Google NotebookLM from content on www.virtualenvironmentsmodule.com, is produced by Acuppa Tae in 2025.
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33:25
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33:25
Team Work and Collaboration
The sixth episode of The Deep Dive podcast looks back on how team building and collaboration has been taught over the years. Guest speaker Sitearm Madonna has taken the class since 2011 and developed a unique approach to teaching in a virtual world, bringing students from Ireland and Turkey together on mixed teams to deliver projects. The conversation, generated by Google NotebookLM from content on www.virtualenvironmentsmodule.com, is produced by Acuppa Tae in 2025.
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35:59
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35:59
VWEC Student Challenge
The fifth episode of The Deep Dive podcast is about how the professors and students took on the Virtual Worlds Education Consortium (VWEC) Student Challenge. Each Project Team had Irish, Turkish and Romanian students working together, mentored by a professor who supported them. The conversation, generated by Google NotebookLM from content on www.virtualenvironmentsmodule.com, is produced by Acuppa Tae in 2025.
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14:50
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14:50
Walking away...?
The fourth episode reflects on the class based aound Ursula K Le Guin’s short story ‘The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas’. The discussion follows the lecturers’ breakdown of the text and the reaction from students. The conversation, generated by Google NotebookLM from content on www.virtualenvironmentsmodule.com, is produced by Acuppa Tae in 2025.
The Deep Dive is a series of short podcasts exploring the undergraduate university module “Virtual Environments: Is one life enough”. The class, developed by the Second Life academic Acuppa Tae (John O’Connor) in 2009, has been offered continuously since then by Technological University Dublin in Ireland; and is delivered entirely online in this virtual world. Each episode concentrates on a different theme from the module and considers the impact on students. The podcast is a conversation generated by Google NotebookLM based on the website www.virtualenvironmentsmodule.com. It is produced by Acuppa Tae in 2025.
Ireland