Shamanic Powers

A journey of a thousand miles begins with one small step! Here’s a very basic prototype 0.001 the trumpet player and the percussionist announce the start of the storytelling. There’s no optimisation yet, so on a slow connection it’s going to take a while for the market backdrop to load. There’s no progress bar yet either, so just go and make a cup of tea while it happens.

You can see it here: http://www.lmsfarm.co.nz/vip/0.001.html

Congratulations Tania, I think we’re beginning to see just how good it’s going to look.

Act I > Scene 1 > Market > Day

Quetzal Sky and his girlfriend are strolling through the market. The musicians play, the dogs bark, the traders hawk their wares. A sinister man observes Quetzal Sky. The storyteller tells the story of the lost son of the old king. A tattoo on Quetzal’s chest throbs, a musical motif we are to hear again floats through the musicians’ song. The storyteller sees the tattoo and is for a moment speechless, he turns his staring eyes back to his audience and resumes his story. Quetzal Sky and his girl sqaut down and listen. Quetzal Sky’s eyes never rest. The story ends, the audience disperse, and the storyteller bids Quetzal Sky to talk to his grandmother, the old shaman Moonlight Bird. Back at Moonlight Bird’s stall she tells them of her Big Dream in which the old king has called for anyone who knew the whereabouts of his lost son. She tells Quetzal Sky he must find some way to the top level of the pyramid where the king resides, and that she will bring about a solar eclipse for him to enter past the guards. Now he must hurry and get the things he needs for his adventure…

Note for Micah: Quetzal Sky’s power animal is the jaguar, he can summon it an any time he is in mortal danger; Moonlight Bird’s power animal is the eagle and she can fly through the corridors of the pyramid or high in the sky above the jungle. The imminent appearance of each power animal is heralded by its musical motif.

Note for Tania: We need to develop the girlfriend (but seriously) how about a western researcher, bridging the cultural and historical gap?

It’s all about modeling the SP, the Student Player. That’s the raison d’être for Virtual Incubator. But what exactly is being modeled? And who is it being modeled for?

I think it goes like this…

• Motivation
• Competency
• Effectiveness

People who would be entitled to get a report would be:

• the student player

People who might want a report could include:

• student player
• student player’s mother
• truant officer
• counselor
• school teacher
• tutor
• course designer
• prospective employer
• current employer
• prospective business partners
• angel investors

There are ethical issues to be worked through here. Maybe a release form to be completed by the SP on registering?

Here it is expanded a bit:

• motivation
  • friendship
  • immersion
  • inquiry
  • achievement
  • leadership
• competency
  • acting
  • interacting
  • contributing
  • communicating
  • thinking
• efficiency
  • initiative
  • direction
  • planning
  • negotiation
  • empathy
  • networks
  • balance

How they are scored is in the blender at the moment, but first thoughts are this:

-3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3

Where:

-3 strongly negative
-2 negative
-1 slightly negative
0 was not observed
1 slightly positive
2 positive
3 strongly positive

So, for examples:

Bartle’s killer is identified by friendship -3;
An SP who has become somewhat isolated is interacting -1;
An SP who waits for others to act may be initiative -2;
A score of 0 against empathy does not mean no empathy.