Janine’s blog

After my initial forays into Second Life, I have recently put some concerted effort into getting off my L plates and onto my Ps. Despite my long term immersion in online environments, and in particular in planning, facilitating and participating in a range of online events for professional development, there is no escaping my baby boomer age apparently! I’ve now spent several sessions of a couple of hours each, focussing on practicing basic skills like moving around!, teleporting, changing my appearance.  All SO basic once you know how.

4 April - An aha moment - communication in SL in mainly text chat

Practice session 8:30 pm - 10:30 pm

“This evening I spent a couple of hours logged into SL. After a failed attempt to install an upgrade, I reverted to an earlier version and then proceeded with my planned practice session. I ended up having a long chat (in world) to Lindy (Decka Mah) and established that communication is through the text chat but with the enhancement of the visual environment, emulation of body language cues and the various objects that can be utilised.

Sound is on its way apparently.”

5 April - Practice session 8:00 pm-9:30 pm
Broad goals this evening

• Practice moving
• Get to know Terra Incognita
• Get better at teleporting

Learning to move around - Millenial son helps Boomer mother

A funny thing happened during the 5 April practice session. My 19 year old walked past me and started laughing. He called out to his brother and said “Hey look at this - she doesn’t even know how to walk” - I hasten to add that he did this in a loving and caring sort of way! He is not into Second Life but he is a gamer from way back (and I have never been into games). I am aware that moving around is a transferrable skill that I do not yet have.  He spontaneously leant over to help me and articulated his metaphor for using the arrow keys “see, you just keep your index finger on the up arrow as your accelerator, and use the side arrows as the steering wheel” . He made my avatar look so co-ordinated! The metaphor works for me though I find an issue with delayed response - not sure if that is my computer, bandwidth or combination of both. So it’s a bit like “click click click wait a bit” .

So what does the visual 3D environment add to chat?

 I am really interested in critically thinking about what difference the visual cues offered by the 3D environment make to the “feel” for the chat. I personally think it does add significantly though there are non trivial  overhead in terms of equipment and bandwidth required to participate in this way. Apparently VOIP is on its way in SL so that will be interesting.

12 April - Learning Set meeting for lab rabbits

Lindy organised a “Learning Set Meeting” a couple of evenings ago. It was attended by four of her “Lab rabbits” and we basically discussed our respective SL action learning projects. So essentially it was a planned chat session taking place in Lindy’s Second Life island, Terra Incognita. Lindy sent out materials in advance about the structure of the meeting and the protocols to be used in the discussion.

So, definitely still on my L plates but improving all the time.

Why keep going?

Apart from the commitment to be a lab rabbit, I will persevere because I really want to understand SL like a native so I can think deeply aboout educational opportunities (or not).

I have agreed to be a lab rabbit in Lindy’s PhD project. THis means participating in professional learning activities and an action research project in Second Life.

We had an orientation session a couple of weeks ago where Lindy used her “Terra Incognito” island as the venue for an information session about what being a lab rabbit involves. We essentially had a presentation from Lindy followed by a group chat and then we went off and had some fun down in the village. I reflected on whether the 3D world added anything to the session over and above what might have been achieved in a 2D text based world. I think the main thing was that there were visual clues about what others were doing (seeing hands move as someone is typing a text message). My skill level was very basic and that certainly interferred with my interaction. I felt unco-ordinated and often confused though after the hour and a half I had mastered some things about moving around.

This evening I finally got back for my second session - on my own this time.  I had to reinstall the software as my laptop has been re-imaged. I got back in OK and fortunately was where I had left off. I had received some emails from Lindy which I followed up on - collected my lab rabbit t-shirt and a bouncing ball. As a result I now understand the inventory tool. I also changed my appearance. Scrolling through the various menus is quite overwhelming - there is so much to it! I think the next step will be to undertake some structured tutorials (should have done that first I guess). I certainly don’t feel at home here yet. I will try to be more regular as I know from past experience that that is the way to really understand the environment.