Friendships in SL

This week I spent many evenings sitting around the campfire on the blogger cafe roof with my new SL friends. There has been a lot of discussion about SL friendships. Many are questioning whether these are true friendships. I've read the various blogs and comments. IMHO I am developing friendships with educators I meet in SL just as I develop friendships with others I meet in workshops, classes, work, organizations, my neighborhood or anywhere else I meet people.

As a child, I met a girl while on vacation at a resort in Wisconsin. She was from a suburb of Michigan and I lived in Chicago. We exchanged addresses, and began a penpal friendship. I was twelve years old, she was thirteen years old. We exchanged letters and cards by regular mail. Sometimes there were weeks or months before a letter arrived in my mailbox. The next year, her family returned to the same resort, but my family did not. Instead since it was on the way, my parents took me to meet her at the tollway oasis so we could see each other in person. We continued to exchange letters and a few phone calls here and there over several years. We never vacationed again at the resort at the same time, but my parents took me up to the resort for a day to see my penpal friend one of the summers when she was there with her family. As we became older and shared more history only in letters and phone calls for the most part, we developed a very close friendship. I was allowed to fly to her home for her Sweet Sixteen party. She came to mine. We visited each other at our colleges. We shared the secrets that girl friends share about life and love, hopes and dreams. She was a bridesmaid at my wedding. We have traveled back and forth with our families over the past 40 years, sharing good times and bad times. Letters became emails, then IM's took the place of phone calls. Our children now are on each other's Facebooks and keep in touch as well and think of each other like cousins. She is someone I know I can count on and consider one of my best friends. Someone who started out as just a penpal.

I tell this story because I think of the people I meet in SL no different than any other people I meet or have met in various life experiences. Common interests and sharing of oneself leads to friendships. Some of the people I'm meeting I feel are becoming my good friends. Yes, many will remain just colleagues or acquaintances, but the collaboration and learning I am experiencing is invaluable to me. Who knows though - I might have met another new friend for rest of my life.

Surf's Up in SL

I was taught how to surf in SL tonight. It was suggested I change to shorts. I had a bathing suit in my inventory, but just couldn't put it on.

Very cool experience!

DEN in SL Demo in RL

This week there are 50 plus educators on a DEN Professional Education Excursion ( a cruise to the Bahamas with workshops included).

Today the DEN in SL Leadership Council pulled together a 30 minute demo of SL and how educators can use it to enhance both their own learning and student learning. Three of our council members were on the cruise along with the Discovery Team. Three of us were in different parts of the USA; MA, DC, and AZ. We all met at the DEN house on Eduisland II at 10 AM SLT.

SL was lagging today. A few minutes before the demo was to start Murphy's Law and two of us crashed. But then it was "show time" and even with slow bandwidth on the ship, we were able to do a tour of the DEN in SL house and some of the links and resources. We demonstrated how speakeasy can be used to prepare text, how avatars walk, fly and teleport. The Eduisland neighborhood was highlighted and we teleported to the Genome Cell project.

While the audience watched through Laelia's eyes, on the ship questions were being answered and more explanations were given.

We hope to do more demonstrations of SL to show the power of this type of networking.

Look for DEN to host workshops in SL and in collaboration with RL events.

Lor's Adventures in SL continues

So what have I been doing in SL the past two nights?



There were fireworks from the top of the apartment building. Macsmom celebrated all the people involved with The Blogger's Cafe and WOW2.

I had conversations on Eduisland and ISTE island about social networks like Ning, using email with students, and internet safety. I'm starting to plan a collaborative project with some teachers I met in SL. I explored the new Lighthouse Learning island and went shopping in SL.

The conversations about education continue, but sometimes the needs of your avatar character have to be dealt with. How many times this week have I asked - am I rezzed? There's something about being out in the SL public with your hair not on, or your textures not showing correctly. I learned some new tricks - how to rebake my character so that the textures appear. I don't like looking like I'm wearing newspaper! I also learned how to make sure my jewelry was on correctly and how to edit it if it's not.

I spent time deciding what dress to wear to the Elven semi-formal party. I teleported to a friend's SL beach house for privacy to try on some of the gowns and dresses I had in my inventory. It's interesting how your avatar becomes an extension of yourself. Shopping in SL is fun for some, and tedious for others. Should you spend your lindens or go for the freebies? Do you want to change your avatar to be something different from who you really are or appear more like the real you? I've taken the liberty to make my avatar younger then the real me.

Here are Kristy and I dressed up at the Elven party.















We're both back in jeans again ready for tomorrow's adventure.

I'll be adding photos of my SL adventure to Flickr, so feel free to check them out.


http://www.flickr.com/photos/44215831@N00/sets/72157600845532890/

Professional Development or Just Plain FUN!

I spent several hours in SL today. That's a lot of time. But well worth it compared to other days I spent in workshops or reading educational articles and learned so little. In SL I connected with educators in New Zealand and the UK, as well as from IL, MA, WI , MO, MI and PA. I discussed best practices in education, open source apps, how to do video Skype, shared jokes, laughed about some silly SL animations, shared with others some tips and landmarks, learned about animation overrides in an online class, made new friends, rode a unicorn, jousted on a horse and shopped. All in a few hours time!

Play and Learn in SL - a busy night

I spent time tonight in SL with friends. First I showed a friend the Blogger Cafe, then back at the DEN house I met some new friends and talked to them about DEN in SL and RL, then I went with Kristy and Macsmom exploring fun sites on other islands, and I ended the evening chatting with Kyle about our plans for IL-TCE. I have the Landmarks for the places visited tonight. Guess I should have made slurls. I did remember to take snapshots, though. So if you want to visit these places in SL just IM me Lor Fredriksson and I'll drop you the LM.

There's a place where you go ride go karts. You need $5L to try this adventure. Kristy and Macsmom seemed to have a blast. It was fun to watch.




















We went ice skating too. Macsmom took us to a safe place to skate. The skates you buy allow you to do many more tricks than the free ones.






We then teleported to Hawaii. There was beautiful scenery, but we couldn't figure out how to windsurf or surf. Kristy and I both couldn't get the windkite to work. Maybe next time.










Deka's place is always fun, too. Here I am on the trampoline. We also played darts, but took a pass at mud wrestling.
















And then there was time to plan and learn in front of the campfire on ISTE island. Kyle and I collaborated on plans for IL-TCE workshops and an SL Playground for the conference.
















SL is addictive. Tomorrow I go to Kristy's scripting class.

Twittering or iChat

I have been using Twitterific and Twitterbox more now instead of iChat or AIM. Twittering is interesting, but at times I think I'm spying on my friends and their daily life. Should I know that much about these people? Do my Twitter friends need to know my every move? I can't decide. iChat and AIM allow me to leave away messages to let family and friends know what I'm currently doing as does Twitter. Twitter allows me to know when my friends might be in SL or follow their work on their wikis and blogs. iChat and AIM allow me to chat in real time with family and friends without my SL avatar. I see a need for these various types of communication tools. I don't use my phone for texting that much and to keep costs down we don't use the phone for internet. So I'm choosing when to use which tool and separating who is a twitter friend, who is on my iChat, or AIM. And then there is Skype!! So many choices.

Conversations in SL

In SL one minute we are discussing changes on the island, new residents, NASA is now on eduisland II. The next moment we are sitting in the grass with pizza and coke watching another avatar change into various characters, like dragons, robots and large furry things. Then we get serious, and conversations turn to internet safety resources, how we integrate technology, how some schools block wikis and blogs. I am now networked with educators from ISTE, DEN and The Blogger's Cafe. I am meeting educators from the consultants and researchers to others like me who are in the trenches, working with the students trying to meet their 21st century learning needs.