So nice to relax here by the sea shore….
And well earned, after many weeks of trying to learn the basics of Second Life. I had no idea how complicated having a second life would be. Of course, if I’d stopped to consider how difficult FIRST life can be, well, this wouldn’t have been such a surprise. I mean, for instance, take my avatar (handsome devil, ain’t he?); all I wanted was a bit more of a tan, you know, to erase of of the northeast winter pallor. One slip of the mouse and WHOA! Extreme spray-on tan. And then, attempts to fix the problem led to one thing after another and here he is: a true mirror or my inner self….
The photo is actually taken from the Marlboro College Graduate Center’s island in Second Life, whilst reclining in an amazing building put there and modified by students and other folks in the Teaching and Learning in Virtual Worlds class. The idea of creating a virtual classroom environment, in which students meet to discuss the meaning of life (or Monopoly, which seems to confuse some folks) is extremely exciting. Tapping into another aspect of technology, relating the classroom to students’ seemingly inexhaustible appetite for more gadgets, and, on a deeper level, keying into many students’ desire to control more aspects of their own life all combine in a virtual world. Learning how to use this world as a way to teach is a bit more of a challenge.
Thus far I’ve become more comfortable with several means of communicating in Second Life (commonly referred to as SL, which once used to mean a nice Mercedes Benz). Keeping track of the multiple layers of text chat that occurs when groups come together is a bit distracting, although probably not too much of a challenge to those growing up as part of the ADHD generation. On top of this there’s private chat/IM options and voice chat as well. If we added semaphor flags flying in the background while cartoon speech bubbles scrolled across the screen in flashing rainbow colors, we’d complete the trifecta of ways to distract yourself without even moving in SL.
Hmmm….using SL as a teaching tool might be even more of a challenge than I thought. Let me ponder this after getting more than 3 hours of sleep, and see what I come up with.
