Hello

I really tried. I’ve spent more time in Second Life this week than I should have. So far, 53 people have said “hello” to me. Other than that

hi: 6
can i help you: 4
greetings earthling: 1

Extended conversations were variations of “what have you found around here that is interesting?” Let’s face it. This is a chat room where everyone has an avatar that looks like Barbie. Am I suppose to think that watching someone’s avatar typing is better than IRC? I have been in SL four days straight and I can’t find anyone doing anything interesting. In the educational areas it is hard to find anyone… period.

I did manage to get a free ISTE T-Shirt on EDUIsland. I swept the floor in a Univ Cincy building and made a dollar. Actually it is a Linden dollar. I saw a link where I could exchange Linden dollars for real dollars. I didn’t have enough cash to make it worth a look. Frankly, I didn’t have enough to buy a tattoo from a kid on a skateboard.

I visited the computer museum, a farm with sheep, a camp ground and many corporate buildings. The corporate people were usually the ones that asked if they could help me. I did like I do in Best Buy and told them I was just looking around.

Behind the scenes there are some things that could be used in education. All the objects created in SL are programmed by SL users. There is value in learning how to create objects that are interactive in real time. An art person can express a lot of creativity here.

I can’t imagine trying to teach a class in SL. With no voice broadcasting, it is just a glorified chat. I also saw a lot of “questionable” things in the educational areas. Once again I am bagging SL for a while. Maybe later in the summer I will have some time to mess around some more. I bet people will flock to me if I say I’m John Rappold.