SecondLife - an earlier post

Having been in Japan for three weeks, it was quite an experience to come back into the course with SecondLife!

But then, was it so different from what I had experienced in Japan? Some of the things I saw were almost surreal in terms of beauty, difference, or eccentricity.

Which of these shots are real life Japan, and which are from SecondLife?

The potential of SL for language learning and teaching has captured my imagination. I need to look into the educational potential. If glove puppets can remove inhibitions for language learning, just think what an avatar can do!

My first visit - and I had to choose my avatar. Not much to choose from. They tell you that you an change it once you get in. But things seemed to happen so quickly that I didn't have time to change. My first location was Orientation Island - good advice from Veronique. I learnt to walk, drive a car, fly and few other things. I'd had enough by the time I had got handed the key to SL - apparenty I had passed all the tests - I hadn't realised. So I left after having a quick walk round Help Island.

The next visit was unexpected. Having logged in to Elluminate, our speaker on SL was unable to join us because, we were later to learn, of some distressing news. So the group decided to go into SL. I was teleported from Help Island, and found myself alone in a field. I eventually found everyone by moving to the dots on the map.

Arwenna Stardust showed us round, but apart from having a good time at the disco and looking around a reconstruction of a concentration camp/prison, I can't remember much. I was probably concentrating too much on how to do things like keeping up with everyone so I wouldn't be left behind, and following the conversation at the same time.

Definitely needed another visit to sort out the clothes and the look. And I had to get rid of that hat.