Virtual Environments: Is one life enough?

John realised this week that he had made a mistake about class time, blaming the time zone differences between Dublin, Turkey and Second Life for his confusion. Regrettably, it meant that the Dublin group met an hour before the other groups. After some discussion it was agreed accommodate those who would not be able to remain online after the scheduled finish time. Everyone agreed that they would be able to reschedule to the later time from next week onwards and John apologised for his error.

The extra time did give everyone a chance to catch up on progress so far. John expressed some concern that he had received only two blog links following the last class and reiterated the need for everyone to submit their links this week. Some participants said they were unable to set up a free account so John said he would circulate more detailed instructions following the class. Then we took a break before logging back in to go meet our new classmates in Whole Brain Health.

John distributed Landmarks (LMs) to everyone and we teleported to Inspiration Island. We were welcomed by Lissena Wisdomseeker who introduced her team: Tooyaa, Fran and Catseye and made us all feel at home. We also met the Turkish students from Çağ University and their professor Magua. After everyone had found a seat in the circle, which miraculously increased in diameter to accommodate everyone Tooyaa gave us an introduction what we would be looking at this week. She shared the Virtual Whole Brain Health website link which has complete details of all of it and will serve as a really useful reference for consulting later.

After everyone had ‘friended’ everyone else and joined the ISP group Tooyaa demonstrated how to change you avatar’s display name. She asked students to select their first names as display names so that we know who you are. Then we all teleported to male and female changing rooms to put on our new team t-shirts. This remarkably simple-sounding exercise is always much more difficult than it sounds and also requires having a classic avatar to work. But, everybody managed and in due course we all arrived back at the cafe suitably dressed and identifiable!