Second Life

My second time in Second Life....

When we were meeting in second life for class I thought alright, a little strange but lets give it a try. I had been in second life once before so it was not completely new to me. The first time I figured out how to control my avatar and move around one section of second life. So it was time to log in for class, 4:30. I got logged in fine, could hear and speak with others in second life. It kinda reminded me of the game the Sims. I was ready to roll but then we had to solve minor issues.(I'm not blaming anyone) Any time you use a new technology for the first time there are glitches and it takes twice as long to try to complete what you thought you could get through. But it got me thinking-

Craig brought up the point that second life could be a place to meet as a group in a virtual world that is more interactive than a conference call. I could see how this is possible because the leader/professor could speak and play a presentation on the big screens. But I think there is a huge learning curve. We are the tech savvy people in our school and we were having trouble connecting and moving around. I could not imagine some of the teachers or students at my school being able to understand and follow what was going on in second life. I understand there is value of getting people together that normal would not be able to meet all together, but for an individual school I think that a lot more can be accomplished meeting in person. I just thought there were too many time that people were not paying attention to the conversations that were going on and following what the group was doing. I took us about 10 minutes just to move from one floor to another.

VARIOUS AREAS OF SECOND LIFE
So I was fine in second life when it was just the TIE class in the NLU building but when Craig told me to go check out another part of second life- I kind of got scared. I teleported myself from an address on a notecard and instantly started receiving IMs that I was not allow to be in their area with many obscene words. I was floating in what looked like the night sky and message were all popping up on my screen. I knew I was not in danger but I was scared and confused at what was going on. Without responding to any message, I found teleport message of where I had come from- clicked on that and was back in the safe space of NLU's building. Very interesting to say the least. Then I went into the NASA area and there was no one around, so I just explored what was around there.

Overall, I guess that point of meeting in Second Life was to experience the different worlds and another life. Which I did- but I felt like I could have done that on my own in 15 min rather than the hour and a half we were in second life. I felt like there was a lot of waiting for everyone to move as one and then waiting for everyone to respond. I think it would work out a lot better if everyone was knowledgeable and experienced in Second Life.