Wednesday, May 23, 2007

My first Second Life experience

What is all this fuss about Second Life? What am I missing out on? Well, if I don't have a go I will not know......but I live in Bangladesh! Do I have enough bandwidth? My students tell me I do not. But reading the Virtual Worlds section of the Horizon Project has really whetted my curiosity. Yes, I was going to have an early night....but thanks to reading Jeff Utecht's blog in my bloglines say goodbye to that! I just had to get in and see if I could experience Second Life myself. I had set up an account weeks ago but abandoned the idea as I couldn't seem to get a good Internet night to download the SL software. Well, for some strange reason tonight I am getting about 25kbs download, so the .exe file came down in record time. Now, have I created an avatar?? I can't remember! I searched the link Jeff shared of SL tutorials on YouTube and couldn't find anything about editing an avatar except that I should have made one when I created an account. Oh, OK, so what did I make myself look like? Can't remember. So, what to do? Alright. let's just open the SL software and see what happens. I login in with my avatar name JulieAnne Acronym and find I am in a place with other 'people'. Someone is walking towards me......crash, the software is gone. I do it again, and again. Same result. OK, let's try something different. Jeff has a shared office in C.A.V.E. (Center for Advanced Virtual Education) which you can go directly to with this SLURL. So I click it, the software opens and I am in a place where the walls start to form and objects turn from a blur to furniture and plants etc. Needless to say my 12 year old daughter is right beside me adeptly moving the arrow keys and then I find Jeff's desk and plants and ...there is his photo! It is his office space!! Wow. Quick take a screen shot...just in time...crash, I'm out again. Not enough computer memory? Internet problems? Don't know..... Here is the 'evidence' anyway. Thanks Jeff for sharing...maybe next time we can have coffee.

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6 comments:

Durff said...

When yo get in again...Skype me for my name. Vicki is going in Friday with her kids! I can't wait to hear!!

Jeff Utecht said...

Thanks for the play by play. You're not going to know what to do with all that bandwidth next year. :)

Thanks for stopping by...hopefully we'll meet up in SL sometime soon. Strange to think that we've been communicating and collaborating all this time in RL and our avatars could meet before us. :)

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Anonymous said...

I'm right there with you Julie! So many things I want to test that my bandwith just can't support... Quite frustrating. But, there is a light at the end of the tunnel! From Bangkok to Doha, hopefully we can meet in SL next year :)

Mr Harrington said...

Hi Julie - I guess you are full of mixed emotions with your move coming up - I for one look forward to your postings here in Wales - keep up the good work.
I ventured into 2nd life myself recently and found it quite a challenge - I was grateful to Leon Cych from NAACE here in the UK who showed me around the UK Education site - they have built a meeting space called the naace lounge.
Have a good move.
Paul H Wales

mike harttrup said...

Hi Julie:

It is enjoyable to see that you are exploring SL without the intent to link it directly with your in-class goals. It's definitely a neat space to explore as well as so many other social networking spaces. I find too often that educators are trying to find the link to their classrooms in order to keep up with the buzz.

mike harttrup