Plan of Action

My plan of attack for this project is as follows:

1. Finish up the Google Earth experiment. THere are broken links that need to be fixed. There should be more video to look at, and the explore links should be researched more to see if there are better links out there. I would also like to figure out a way to make it more easily navigable, so that people understand how to interact with the media. The strength of this type of experience in Google Earth is that the user can experience EL Cerrito as a part of the rest of the world. Comparisons and contrasts can be made with other areas of the world.
   
2. Begin modeling EL Cerrito in Second Life. I believe that this will be a much better experience for the user. The navigability is much easier, there are more opportunities for interaction with the sim, and the users will also be able to interact with each other. The weakness of this type of experience in Second Life will be that El Cerrito will exist as a microcosm, unconnected with what actually surrounds it geographically in reality. It will also be time-consuming to build things that we need to include to make this sim appear to be El Cerrito.
3. At a later date Emin will also be modeling EL Cerrito in Unity 3-D, which can be used with a web client. The strength of this type of experience using Unity will probably be that you get everything you get with Second Life, but only a web browser is needed for the user to interact.
   
4. We will keep notes during the builds and do field tests with users to compare and contrast the experiences using each one of these mediums. We shall write a research paper about the project. At the end, the geography department (as well as other departments) should have 3 simulated field school experiences available for students to use.