The second of our Meta Enterepreneurship course started with Dahlia's opening speech in the meeting area on our virtual campus. After the opening speech, Dahlia introduced the first guest of our lecture, Valibrarian Gregg (VaI). After VaI briefly introduced herself, we moved to the 'Metaliteracy' themed presentation area on our virtual campus. Here, Val started her presentation by introducing the book she had written. She then continued by mentioning that the definition of the concept of literacy has changed.
In her presentation, Val talked about the concept of 'Prosumer', which was later introduced by Alvin Toffler. Prosumer is a concept that emerged as a result of bringing the concepts of producer and consumer together. Val said that we are all prosumers by both producing and consuming content on the social media platforms we use in daily life. Since we are all producers and consumers on the social media platforms we use, Val stated that we are all prosumers.
In the following part of her presentation, Val mentioned that the digital world we live in is an ever-changing and evolving world. For this reason, she emphasized that we are all in a constant learning process and we are constantly learning new things. She also stated that we can have many different roles in the digital world we live in.
After completing her presentation in this area, Val placed a teleporter in the area. With this teleporter, the students moved to the 'Darkside Room' area, which is another presentation area. Val continued her presentation here and this time she emphasized the dark aspects of the digital world and what to pay attention to in the digital world. Val stated that there is a lot of information in the digital world, so one should be selective in acquiring information. She also explained the concepts of cyber security, fear of missing out, confirmation bias and cyberscurity.
After the presentation, Val placed a teleporter in the area again and this time the students teleported to the Virtual Library area. In this area, Val asked the students the following two questions and asked the students to answer these questions:
- What caught your attention about digital citizenship and metaliteracy?
- What are your thoughts about your future as a digital citizen?
Our students answered the first question by saying that the concepts of confirmation bias, too much information, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and metaliteracy attracted their attention the most in today's presentation. In response to the second question, they stated that they think that technology will be more involved in their lives in the future and that artificial intelligence will take part in many areas of life.
After this short debrief session, Hilly Haalan was the guest of our lesson. Hilly Haalan designs clothes for avatars in Second Life and sells them on Marketplace. Hilly was a guest in our class as a meta-entrepreneur and started her speech by telling the students how she started this business and what she does. Hilly then stated that she could continue by answering the questions from the students, and our students asked her some questions about her job. Our students first asked how she decided to do this job and how she started. Hilly stated that she didn't know anything at the beginning, but she really wanted to learn it and responded by emphasizing that she worked hard for it and never gave up. Later, our students asked questions about Hilly's marketing strategies. Here Hilly started her speech by saying that the competition is very high. However, Hilly emphasized that the most important issue is customer satisfaction and that communication with customers is a key point here. Hilly offered to take a small tour of her shopping center, and with the students' willingness to do so, a short tour was organized in Hilly's store, where our students had the opportunity to see an example of meta-entrepreneurship.
After a short tour of Hilly's store, Dahlia explained to the students the assignment they had to prepare for the next week and asked the students to make a detailed analysis of the product they decided on. After this statement, the lesson ended.
Many thanks to our guests Valibrarian Gregg and Hilly Haalan.