Second Life Tour, Day 3

For today's tour, I set the timer on my iphone to 45 minutes.  I was able to stay in Second Life for that long, although I admit I was ready to split after about 30 minutes.  Clearly, there is no danger for addiction, as I explored in yesterday's blog (see below).

I tried entering through a different porthole today, one that I viewed on a video made by David Taylor from National University's Second Life island, which automatically uploaded following one of our class video tutorials. It's pretty good and might be helpful for those who are wishing to visit Second Life for the very first time in order to set up their accounts.  I've already visited with the help of my instructor, who guided me on how to select an avatar and find landmarks and other perform other necessary functional tasks in S.L. Here's is David's version of this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siRbP8oErHI&spfreload=10

Moving on.  Today I intended to enter something called Svarga, which was mentioned in one of our readings, 'Blended Realities: A Virtual Tour of Education in Second Life.'  (Calonge & Hiles, TCC 2007 Proceedings).  This paper documents how, "in 2006, formal education took root in this online multi-user virtual environment and how new kinds of learning environments and activities are emerging in this rapidly-growing world called Second Life." One of the primary purposes for this blog assignment is to explore SL and fill this space with my impressions, reactions, observations, etc.. into how the 3D immersive environment could be used for lessons with my ESL students. Svarga sounded like an interesting space:

"Svarga's lush landscape, created by former Lionhead game developer and SL avatar Laukosargas Svarog, includes interdependent species of artificial life, complete with genes that sometimes mutate and produce new variations." 

I wasn't able to enter Svarga because I didn't search for it in the right way.  I'm sure it's there, I just didn't find it in the initial search screen on SL.  No matter.  I entered via one of my previously saved locations, Learn It Town.

For a change, I decided to visit things that are familiar to me and that imitate real life; known locations. This was one way I thought I might embrace the surreal world of SL a bit more readily.

I found Oahu Island on the list of suggested places.  After an airport-style greeting with a lei (which took me several minutes to find out how to wear it...clicking 'wear' doesn't automatically made the lei appear around your neck and it took several tries to make it 'stick').  Here's an overview of the Arizona Memorial location, which is an artist's re-imagined version:

 Here's a realistic view of the shrine dedicated to the soldiers who still lie entombed in the ocean below the monument.  This is a what the wall looks like in real life, so I like this aspect of Second Life.  I'm not very interested in fantasy, fiction, sci-fi or anything that isn't real life.  For those of you who feel the same, rest assured there are many sites on Second Life that are based on reality.

I navigated to a familiar spot on the memorial (which I have visited 10+ times) where you can see the submerged hull of the U.S.S. Arizona over the railing.  I liked how the designer of this site re-created a realistic view of what you might see while actually on the memorial.   The name for the memorial is now
"World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument", and has been for the past 10 years or so.

Here's a good link for you to compare the real Valor in the Pacific Memorial to the SL one:
https://www.pearlharboroahu.com/

Somehow, I ended up on the ocean floor, which was mildly entertaining for a few minutes.  Fish swim overhead and I felt like I was at the Monterrey Bay Aquarium.

 











After a few minutes, I needed a change of scenery, so I returned to Learn It Town with my lei on.


After flying around, I could see waves in the distance and having just visited Oahu, I felt compelled to get close to the water.  However, I couldn't move past a yellow barrier preventing my avatar, Brunellista, from visiting the beach.  I assume this is a privately-owned island and I don't belong to whatever group has developed it.  No worries..there are plenty of other places to go in this town.

 I sat down on a Learn It Town landmark but wasn't able to add a  'note' as it was asking me to do...I right clicked several times but just couldn't activate anything.  In our instructions for this assignment we are asked to collect as many notecards on locations when possible.  The are supposed to appear automatically when we click on a object but this one didn't give me anything. Hmm.

 I visited the stable via one of the links that my instructor gave me...not exactly a horse barn environment...more like a shopping mall with options to choose from, horses to buy with Linden dollars, etc...I received a barrage of cubed-note icons in my upper right screen which I assume were generated by visiting the area.  I couldn't figure out ANYthing about how to move around in this space, so I left.


I eventually ended up following a link that showed me where other people were in Learn It Town during my visit.  I found Lowrie, who I believe is my instructor's business partner in Learn It Town.  She was sitting down watching a film in a movie theater, which I remembered visiting before.  There was a strange urge to say 'hello!' or move closer to her avatar to see what would happen.  Nothing happened, even though I moved around a bit.  Art doesn't really imitate life in this arena.

I think there was a film playing...it had dialogue between two African American people who were discussing the proper way to wear a cravat/ascot and whether or not it was similar to a tie.  I invisoned Morgan Freeman in my mind, even thought the voice belonged to some other actor.