Virtual Environments: Is one life enough?

It seemed to be more of a challenge than usual for students to access Second Life today. It may be down to the fact that most were on campus and the network security was blocking some activities. Only a few students were able to activate voice so we had to conduct class using ‘nearby chat’ which made everything very slow and tedious. Some students were unable to access Second Life at all. Nevertheless, a majority made it to the class room in virtual TU Dublin and we worked around the problems to do some basic tasks.

Everyone learned how to have their avatars sit in the chairs and we all made ‘friends’ with each other. This means that we know when our colleagues are online and we can contact them. John also invited everyone to join the module group which means students will be able to create objects in the virtual campus, send group chats and receive group notices.

Then we all went outside for the class photo which was a good exercise in learning how to move your avatar and get it into a specific position. It was a little like watching babies learning to walk!

By this time everyone was exhausted so John proposed putting the discussion about blogging off until next week. He reminded the students to check out their assignment in Brightspace and to review the material for next week’s class.