This lab gives you a hands-on introduction to the virtual world of Second Life (SL). During the lab, you will be visiting 3 businesses in Second Life. You will document your activities by taking pictures, exploring each "island" to learn what you can, and (hopefully) talking to the people who run the island(s) or spend time there.
Activity One
Sign up for a Second Life account: https://join.secondlife.com/
Your "avatar" (your character in Second Life) will start out on "Orientation Island".
I believe you are required to complete a tutorial before you can roam around in Second Life. Once you have created an account, run the Second Life program and sign in to complete the tutorial.
Activity Two
You'll do these activities in small groups. Find 2 other students (groups of 3) in the lab and work together to complete the rest of these activities. I encourage you to sit next to one another to help each other with Second Life.
Before we get started, let’s set some GROUND RULES:
- Be kinds to others and treat them with respect – there are real people behind the avatars you encounter.
- Always use a person’s name when initiating discussion in Chat
- Chat in public, IM when the other person is not in the vicinity.
- Not everyone has time to chat. Some people are building, scripting, sorting inventory items, etc. Just move along and find someone else to chat with. Don’t take it personally if someone is busy.
- Keep it clean, stay away from “mature adult” areas.
- Con artists are, sadly, everywhere in SL. Be careful.
- You *will* very likely be approached by one or more “griefer” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griefer). Ignore him/her.
Be sure you take some time to get familiar with the movement controls. You can view them at any time by selecting "view" from the top menu and then "movement controls". A small window will appear with the movement controls. The most important are the cursor keys for regular movement (forward/backward). Press and hold 'page up' to fly. Press and hold 'page down' to stop flying.
Camera controls are also important. Here's how they work:
- Put your mouse pointer on an object you want to see closer or orbit
- Hold down the ALT key (keep it down)
- Hold down the left mouse button(keep it down)
- VERY SLOWLY move your mouse around fwd and back and side to side
- if you get out of range just walk your avatar a step it will snap back!
Activity Three
We'll all meet in SL on the Island of Meteora. Use this "SLURL" (Second Life URL) to go to the Island of Meteora directly: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Meteora/128/128/0. In order to use the SLURL, log out of Second Life. Enter the SLURL in your browser window and you will be asked if you want to launch Second Life and "teleport" to this location.
Join together for a picture of your group (3 students working together). Use the camera controls to take the picture from the front (I want to see more than the back of your heads!) Note: Be sure to include this photo in the document you submit to me as I will use it to track attendance.
Activity Four
Class photo time! Head over to the "C47" airplane for a class photo. (Look around and you should be able to find it. You can see the bi-planes from where you are standing.) Someone take on the role of photographer for the whole group. (Again,use the camera controls to take the picture from the front so I can see more than the back of your heads!) Be sure to send me the photo!
Activity Five
As a group, choose 3 companies from the list of the "Top 25" as of Feb 23 2009:
http://theprojectfactory.com/slstats/090223_tpfslstats.jpg
Note1: This company stopped providing these stats so this is the latest list available. Hopefully, the companies listed are still operating in Second Life.
Note2: Please use good judgment in selecting the companies to visit for this activity.
- As a group, visit the "islands" for these companies to interact with all of the elements on that island
- For each of the 3 companies:
- Try to find an "employee" of the island. As them questions about their "job".
- Approach other visitors. Introduce yourselves as students.
- Take pictures! At the end of this activity, you will put your pictures and the questions from Activity Six in a document and send to me.
Activity Six
Document your experiences and observations by answering the following questions:
- What companies did you visit? What did you find?
- (Include your group photo and photos from your visits in this section of the document)
- What surprised you most about SL overall?
- As a result of your visit to SL, do you think it is an effective environment for business? Why or why not?
Resources
What is Second Life? http://secondlife.com/whatis/
