节目资讯
刊物:生活知识家
日期:2009-10-17
难易度:Low
关键字:site, community, aggressive, confident, VHIL, Virt
(Music).
Hi, friends.
Welcome to Studio Classroom Worldwide.
My name is Steve.
This is the second day of our Studio Classroom TECHNOLOGY article titled
Avatars.
The question is:
What do you look like on the Internet?
Avatars are a great way to reinvent yourself.
But be warned.
If you’re not careful, the line between avatars and real life could get a little
blurry.
We’ll discuss that more after we peek at two new key words.
The first is site.
Will’s friend just designed a new website,
and now Will wants to design his own site.
Next is the word:
community,
community,
as in:
Kelly lives in a very small community where everyone knows each other.
OK. Let’s learn about avatars and real life.
This reading begins on page thirty-five.
(Music).
Avatars.
Avatars and real life.
Using avatars can make playing video games or studying English more interesting.
But other sites allow users to do more.
Online community Second Life lets avatars do anything from shopping to fighting
dragons.
Second Life is also unique because players can use their avatars to buy real
things like art.
This ability raises questions about the relationship between people and their
avatars.
In fact, research has shown that avatars can affect their users.
Hi, friends.
And welcome to Studio Classroom.
I’m Chelsea.
And I’m Chip.
And thanks for joining us for our second day in our TECHNOLOGY article where
we’re talking about avatars.
And yesterday,
we saw that avatars are online representations of people or kind of an online
personal symbol uh, that looks like a real person.
And you can have your own personal avatar.
And you can do several different things with your avatar.
You can.
You can give it different hairstyles and choose accessories for it and have a
lot of fun with it.
But today, we’re going to be looking at avatars and real life.
Our text tells us that using avatars can make playing video games or studying
English more interesting.
I think we discovered that yesterday.
But Chip, did you know that other sites actually allow users to do more?
You can do more than, you know, study English and do more than play video games
with avatars.
There’s whole range of things you can do.
Yeah.
And... and there are several different websites that use these avatars.
And that word uh, websites is often shortened to the word site.
And when we’re talking about a site, uh, we can talk about a site in other ways.
Uh, usually it means a place, a place where something happens.
So we kind of think of a place on the Internet as a... well, a place.
And so we call that a... a site or website.
So it goes on to say that online community Second Life lets avatars do anything
from shopping to fighting dragons.
Now in this case, the word community is talking about a group of people who have
a common interest.
So it sounds like this community known as Second Life, they all share this
interest in avatars.
And I imagine that they go on and they... they select their avatars and they
make it look however they want it to look,
and then they send their avatars off on jobs like going shopping.
And maybe when they get finished shopping, they go out and they fight a dragon.
I don’t know.
This sounds pretty interesting to me, though.
OK.
So you can fight dragons on the Internet,
which, we know, is imaginary or not real.
But Second Life, this website, is also unique because players can use their
avatars to do real things.
Uh, not just imaginary things but real things.
And what example does uh, our article give, Chelsea?
Well, it tells us that the avatars can buy things like art.
So maybe you create your avatar and you send them shopping,
and you obviously are the person who is actually selecting the piece of art that
you would like to buy.
But I... I can imagine this avatar going into a store and maybe pulling his or
her wallet out and paying a clerk for the artwork,
and then a few weeks later in the mail, you get an actual piece of artwork.
So these avatars really do do a lot.
That’s right.
It’s... it’s... I guess it’s uh...
You can... you can do a lot of shopping online or you buy things online and
things get mailed to your house.
But here you’re actually...
A representation of you is actually going to a store to buy something real.
Now this ability raises some questions.
Yes, it raises questions about the relationship between people and their
avatars.
Now it seems strange to me that we’re using the word relationship here.
We are human beings,
and the avatars are computer-generated uh, creatures or people or animals.
And to have a relationship with those seems very strange.
We usually have relationships with real things, real people, real animals.
But it sounds like there might be some researches going to show us that maybe if
you use the Internet a lot,
and you have an avatar, and you’re constantly online that you might form a
relationship with that avatar.
That affects who you are as a real person.
That’s right.
I’m curious and worried about this.
That’s right that the avatar is different from you.
And yet, it’s... it’s also your representation.
He’s...
This... this is a... a cartoon-like representation of you,
so... so it’s also part of you.
So there’s a... a very unique relationship here.
And I think uh, another question that would come for me uh, would be what...
what should my avatar look like.
Um, should it look exactly like me? Or uh, what I... do I want my avatar to look
maybe better than I look?
And I think this is all part of the research that we’re going to be finding
out... uh... finding out about soon.
Our next sentence says:
In fact, research has shown that avatars can affect their users.
So maybe depending on how your avatar looks and how often you are online,
that’s going to have an effect maybe on how you behave and... and what you do
and all sorts of things.
This is all very interesting.
It’s much more complicated than just getting online and having fun and then
forgetting all about it once you leave the Internet.
Right.
And... and this word ”affect” can mean good... uh... good results or bad
results.
It could have a good meaning or a bad meaning.
We’re gonna take a deeper look at that word ”affect” here in the Chat Room and
with Ken.
And we’ll take a break after that and we’ll be back.
Hello, friends.
Welcome to another edition of the Chat Room.
I’m Ken.
And I’m Doris.
And today, we continue to look at avatars.
Doris, our lesson says research has shown that avatars can affect their users.
Now this word ”affect,” uh, shouldn’t it be spelled with an ”e,” E-F-F-E-C-T?
Well, you need to be careful here, Ken.
”Affect” with an ”a” and ”effect” with an ”e” are two different words.
And we need to learn to distinguish them.
OK. So how are they different?
Well, affect spelled with an ”a” is usually a verb, meaning to influence.
And effect spelled with an ”e” is usually a noun, meaning result.
So this sentence in the article ”Avatars can affect their users” is the same as
Avatars can influence their users?
Exactly.
What about the phrase:
take effect?
Which effect should I use?
Well, remember, effect with an ”e” is usually a noun.
So in the phrase:
take effect,
we see the verb:
to take.
And therefore, we should use the noun:
effect.
E-F-F-E-C-T.
Oh, so take effect means to be effective.
You’ve got it.
(Chinese).
Doris, you mentioned effect is usually a noun.
What other parts of speech can it be?
Well, sometimes effect can be used as a verb to mean to bring about or produce
as a result.
So for example, if there’s a policy designed to effect savings, it will cause
new savings to come about.
Whereas if we say the policy affects savings, spelled with an ”a,” it may reduce
people’s savings.
Mm, you’ve got it.
And that’s where most people feel confused.
But like I said, most of the time, effect with an ”e” is a noun.
And if you just remember that, you should be fine.
(Chinese).
Well, and I think now is a good timeto effect a break. So Studio Classroom will
be right back.