Second Life and Me
By yvonnereed - Posted on April 6th, 2008
I took Libr285 last semester and we spent a lot of time on Second Life. At first I thought, “is that all there is?” because I was not particularly interested in meeting up with people in this virtual world but after spending lots of time there, I realized that there is something for everyone.
One of the things I had to do on SL was to conduct social research which involved observing and conducting interviews on SL. At first it was a little unnerving to approach strangers for this task but actually it was better than doing it in real life.
Aside from campuses and libraries, I found that there are crazy parties (what a surprise!), support groups (like grief support and AA), and even a unique site like the one that created a replica of the Vietnam Memorial that allows you to look up a loved one and honor them by placing a rose next to their name. I visited that memorial in SL during Veteran’s Day and it was very moving. Picture of my avatar at the memorial…
There is a separate Teen SL that is supposed to make it safer for teens since this island is separate from the regular SL. I know that there are some libraries that use Teen SL in part of their teen programming. I think there is a big appeal for teens to be on SL. Of course for libraries like mine, we would have to upgrade our equipment before SL could become part of our programming.
And there are place like New Citizens Incorporated (NCI) that regularly offer classes in scripting, land ownership, avatar makeovers, etc. The classes are very much like a classroom setting with an instructor and other attendees with lecture, notes and sometimes demonstrations.
My Libr285 class met with our instructor in her virtual office. We used voice to communicate and it was very much like being in a classroom or video conferencing with the exception that you didn’t have to worry about “being your pajamas”.
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