Week 10

As we are now on the second portion of the semester, the hardest part begins, figuring out what we are doing for our final project. This week I have been trying to think of what it is I want to do, and mean while, I traveled in SL to a couple of places. I went to Ancient Roma, or a place that is supposed to look like it. I did not find it as interesting as I thought I would. I also visited a Sustainability Virtual Campus, which was nice to see the structure of the buildings with a lot of open spaces and windows. There was an auditorium where it seems that people are able to meet and give presentations on sustainability issues. A beautiful place I visited this week was a Polynesia Island where I was able to dance at one of the areas. Although the island itself was absolutely gorgeous with waterfalls and palms trees, I wish that there was more information on the actual Polynesian culture though. Today was what really made me realize how amazing SL can be. I visited a church where you can actually attend a service, put prayers on a note card, and even pray. I would never think that these types of places could exist, my when I saw it on the destination guide, I just had to explore it. Below are some pictures of this week's adventure.

New Experience

For the past couple of weeks, I have been traveling in SL and playing on WoW. Never did I think I would ever play WoW, and now that I have started getting the hang of it, I am getting hooked! At first I had no idea what I was doing. I actually thought that I was only one lost, but when we met as a group for the 2nd time, I realized that many of the other class mates were confused as well. My biggest challenge has been actually the quests of killing the enemies. They seem to be very difficult to kill, but as I learned, I need better weapons to kill them faster. 

When reflecting on how WoW can be used in classrooms/teaching, I did not have a clue. That was until Jane had us brainstorm during our class meeting. It was very interesting to see what we all came up with as to how WoW can be used as a teaching tool. Its amazing that a game can actually have various learning objectives, rather than it being just used as a hobby.

This week I was able to take a tour of a Space Station, explore the Star Trek Science Museum, take a tour of Virtual Hallucination, and explore Machu Pichu. All of these places were interesting to explore because I learned so many new things. For example, in the tour of the Virtual Hallucination, I was able to experience voices, objects moving, and other things that a person suffering from schizophrenia would actually experience. Below are a couple of pictures of my adventures this week. 

This week's adventures

 So my first educational adventure was visiting a Holocaust Museum that represented the night of "Kristallnacht," which is also known as the "Night of Broken Glass" where German soldiers went out and destroyed many shops, synagogues, and homes of Jews.

In this picture I am reading some of the stories of some of the people. After reading the story of how and why it all started, I explored a representation on the town. As you can see in the second picture, the streets are full of broken glass and the windows are shattered everywhere. This was an interesting experience seeing this because it helped me get an idea of what many Jews went through.

On Thursday night, I had met with Cyrus from ISTE, who gave us a tour of New England. 

We first went to a town called Innsmouth, which was based on the author H.P. Lovecraft's story "The Shawdow Over Innsmouth". The town was very creepy and it was interesting to explore the town that was created with so many objects from years ago. Although I have never heard of this story, after visiting this place, I am very interested in reading it. During our tour, we were then taken to two more places. One of them is called Wondrous Place, where when you enter the island, there is a tree with a door in it.

The door leads you to a room with multiple doors. Each door then takes you to a new place. The picture below is a space ship that I explored through one of the small doors that I entered. The place was pretty cool because it lets you go to multiple places.

After the tour, I met up with Djangoguitar where we visited multiple art galleries at Healy. We were even able to do some Tai Chi and sit down to mediate a bit in order to release some stress. The paintings were amazing in the gallery and there were even options for people to donate money. Overall, this week was very busy!

 This week in SL, I was able to adjust my avatar Victoria's appearance. I chose a ballerina avatar but changed her body structure and hair. Every time I tried changing her outfit, her original outfit would always stay on. The first picture is of a closeup of Victoria after I changed her facial and body structure. The second one is of when I changed her hair and wardrobe, except you can see that she is wearing a black tank top on top of leotard. She looks very silly.

     

I got to travel to place in Spain and the below picture is of me doing a virtual dance at a night club. It was nice to go to a Spanish speaking place and hear familiar music. The picture to the left is of me and Diana in Brazil, as we were trying to find a place to get clothes for free. It was not successful. It was nice to bring her, Karmi, and Linda along to a place that I have already traveled to. I am hoping that this week though I can travel to an educational place with some other classmates.

So during the class meeting on Thursday we went to a place where we can get free clothes, but as I was trying to change Victoria's outfit and take off her original clothes, I was having problems. I decided to just get a new avatar to make it easier. I chose a hindi woman which I was able to change her clothes and not have her original clothes still be visible. Great week in SL this week.

As for Jokaydia, I was able to build a slide. I am thinking of maybe creating a playground little by little ( we shall see). Although my slide was built with the basic building blocks and looks very simple, I really wanted to make it look curved or swirl it around. I have not figured it out but I am going to see if someone can show me how to do it. I also want to learn how to include a script so when people click on it they can go up the ladder and slide down. If anyone knows please let me know!

Using Second Life

So today was a pretty interesting day for me. I used the recipe that the satin couches were made from and built my own couches. The difference between my couch and the ones that were already built is that I used my texture of penguins. So now I have a penguin couch! It was nice to have Artemis and Diana building other things with me too. Artemis built an awesome plane! I need to learn some more skills so I can build something as cool as a plane.

It was nice to also meet with the class once again as Muffle was able to teach us a thing or two about scripts. The lesson was very useful, but I am still going to need a lot of trial and error when playing around with coordinates for the rotation. Below is a picture of us all trying to incorporate the script of "ex" into our cube. Thanks again Muffle!

After our class meeting, I decided to log on to Second Life and see explore a little. My avatar's name for SL is Victoria0326. When I first logged in, I noticed how objects are much more clear. I began searching for places where I can teleport and I decided to go to Isla Rio in Brazil. I have always wanted to travel there so I figured it should be the first place I explore. Wow. I absolutely loved it. Right away I was greeted by other SL players, except they were all speaking Portuguese so I really did not know what they were saying. At one point, I had to use google translate in order to understand what they were saying. I began wandering the Island and I can honestly say I actually felt like I was in Brazil. There were different Brazilian songs being played in the island that I actually recognized due to the fact that I watch a dubbed Brazilian show on TV. The first picture is of a beach area with a bar and a firepit in the middle where you can find many people hanging out. There were avatars dressed in bikinis and other beach type of wardrobes. The second picture is of me admiring the beach as I listen to the Samba being played. For a second, I could feel the warm sun and hear the waves splashing, and then reality sunk when I see the snow outside my window. :( Sigh. I was able to change my avatar once I logged in to SL but I still need to figure out how to change her clothes, hair, etc. I was too excited to explore other places. As for now, I  am super excited to now use SL.

We are now in Week 4

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So in the beginning of this week, I traveled to Arbennik Island and thought it was pretty cool. The island was filled with many different fields to play games. It almost seemed as it was a place for people to practice sports. I took a picture of myself (the top link) looking at an arena filled with flags and with the Olympic rings. I thought it was appropriate since the winter Olympics has started and I have been watching some of their games on TV. I have not been able to plan to meet with one of my classmates to explore some more but I was able to meet with Esme and the rest of the class this past Thursday. Visiting Cybernauts of Skowhegan was very interesting, especially since we got to speak to the owner of the region. The class that Paul teaches seems so cool and I am sure his students enjoy making the neat projects he requests, especially the reenactment of plays.

As far as building, I was able to deconstruct a couch last week and reconstruct it. I was able to also learn to incorporate a script and made the couch rotate. To me that was the highlight of my week in Jokaydia since I had no idea how nor what scripts were used for. Every time in Jokaydia is a learning experience!

My first time in Jokaydia

Yesterday was my first time in Jokaydia. Before the orientation with Esme, I was able to successfully land on Joakydia explore the "Newbie Zone" and "Scooter". Since this is my first time playing on this type of software, I am challenged to learn all of its features. At first, I bought skin and hair and even a black dress, thinking I could change the appearance of my avatar. The only thing that happened was that a white cloud appeared rather than having a female woman in the clothes I bought. I soon realized that I had to buy an avatar first before even buying any of the other features. Wooops! Thanks to our quick orientation with Esme, I was able to figure that out, as well as discover our Class Hub. Unfortunately, the system was kicking all of us off consistently therefore we had to reschedule our orientation. I am hoping that my next meeting with Esme, I will be able to learn a lot more about where to get the assignments and drop them off and other basic things. Meanwhile, I will get back on to Jokaydia tonight and see if I can play around with some of my avatar's physical features.