Students were required to write a blog entry this week telling what they have been learning in Second Life. I know it's a lot of text in one entry but I really didn't want to break it up because it reflects where the whole class is at this point in our work. For these beginner activities I awarded Linden based on word count divided by 10 and also awarded Linden for building the living rooms based on prim count.
Hi my name is Diana G, I am thirteen years old, and I am in the eighth grade. I am not that really into sports except in baseball and football. When I am bored I like to hear music and read. I also like to watch TV. I have learned so much in these classes that I have had with Ms. Baron and Ms. Strehlow in Second Life. For example I now know how to build any kind of furniture in Second Life such as sofas, tables, houses, and also other furniture. Once I accidently built my sofa into the ground. I also learned how to take pictures of my work while I am doing it. In Second Life we got to communicate with our friends and, not just talking about anything we had to talk about what we learned in class and how we did in class. Doing this got me Linden or money for my character in Second Life. I used this money to buy textures for my furniture. What was pretty cool is that I got to share my textures with my friends. I got all my furniture textures at the Lowell Depot. There was a lot to choose from. Another way I earned Linden was answering questions that Ms. Strehlow asked, and when I shared my opinion with her and with others. In Second Life we were able to fly, walk around, and also run. I think that was weird but cool. This would help me in my job or to get a job because if I wanted to become a construction worker or an architect that would build houses, tables, and other kind of furniture I would know how to build any kinds of things in a computer and they would be my models. This class was very helpful and very exciting.
Hi, I am Myron and I control the avatar Myron Mistwalker in Second Life. In real life, I attend Lowell Elementary in Phoenix, Arizona. I enjoy some sports. My favorite football team is the New England Patriots. I also enjoy reading a little bit and playing outside on the weekends. I used to want to be an architect when I grow up, but now I would like to be an oncologist. If I were to change my mind in the near future back to becoming an architect, then Second Life would give me some skills that I could take with me to that career choice. So far in Second Life I have learned how to use different geometric shapes to create different objects. I have learned how to do some interior design. I know how to match up colors. I know how to shape things on a computer, in a three dimensional environment. This year Second life has been different. There are more kids in the class, and we have to write blogs on our PESD island accounts on ning.com. I don’t enjoy writing these blogs because I don’t like writing and I want to spend more time in Second Life. I must write these blogs though, because people want to know what exactly we are doing in Second Life, and what we are learning from this program. Second Life is not a game. It is a very advanced program and it should be treated as such. It has taught me many things. Using Second Life I personally have learned to be more responsible. I have deadlines that I have to meet. I need to know how to spend my money wisely. When I get older I will need these skills in real life when I am in school. I will need to know how to reach deadlines and I will need to know how to spend my money wisely.
Hi, I’m Nick. I have an avatar named “Nik Neximus.” An avatar is the player/character in Second Life. We have this assignment that we are working on right now, which is a “floor plan.” This floor plan is literally a floor plan. This is different from all other assignments I had before because you have to build a kitchen in the kitchen. The floor plan says to build a table and four chairs and we had to build a stove and sink. In the living room we have to build two chairs and one big sofa and a table in the middle. I also put a plasma screen TV in the wall and had a big window on the side of the living room. In the bathroom I had to build a tub and toilet and a sink too. It’s a lot of fun, because it’s like creating your dream home. You can make it look like you want it to look. I had to learn how to use measurements and learn how to build beds, walls, floor, and a roof to scale. You start out with a simple 3-D shape like a cube, sphere, or pyramid and shape it to look like the wanted form. You can also gain money know as Linden by working and doing what you are suppose to. You can also lose Linden if you mess around and you are not in task. You can give money to other players or buy supplies that would help you in assignments you are doing. You can share some of the supplies with other people some other ones you can’t.
Hi. My name is Jesus R. and I’m in Second Life. My avatar name is Jesus Runner. What I have learned in Second Life is how to create objects and how we need to have the same length or it doesn’t come out the same size. This makes me think like people that work making things like tables and other objects. In the world it takes money to move forward in your life and in Second Life it’s helping me know how people spend their money. In life we have to work to get money and that’s what we are doing in Second Life. Everyday we have an assignment. Every time we come to the library we have to finish and by the end of the day get Linden. I think Second Life is trying to have us think what we do with our money. I am building a little table and a couch and made a floor. I spend my money on carpet and on fabric.
Hi, I’m Omar G. I have an avatar and my name is “Ohmar Orsini.” I have learned how to make lots of cool new items, for example I know how to build a bed, TV, drawers, counters, speakers, and I’ve learned how to make stuff hollow. I also learned how to communicate with my peers better than I used to. I built a speaker and I used a cube and made it hollow and then I got and other cube and made it to the right measurements and then I put it in side the hollow cube and I made a speaker. I got the supplies because I bought them from the Lowell Depot. The Lowell Depot is a store where you can buy lots of great textures, woods, windows, and much more. Most of the materials that you can buy cost 10 Linden. The materials you buy in the Lowell Depot are for your building uses, so when you make a wall you can change the texture into a better look. Yes, you can share items with other players or you can sell it to them. You report your work on Ning.com. The Ning is just like Twitter or MySpace because you get to talk to other people that have avatars. You also get to upload photos that you took while you play Second Life. You can upload your own pictures but they need to be appropriate. Adding people is quite simple. You just need to look for them and then send them a friend request or they can send you one. You design your own page but you really don’t get any points when you fix your page up. You communicate by typing on the “typing bar” on Second Life.
Hi. My name is Francisko Madrigal. I learned how to use Second Life and learned how to share objects with people. I am learning how to build a house with my partners. This program can help me learn about architecture. I learned how to communicate with other people. I got my supplies by buying them at Lowell Depot. Lowell is a place where you could buy things for your house like windows, carpets and doors. I share materials with my partners and most of my classmates. I report my work by taking pictures or talking to Ms. Strehlow. I communicate by chat messages and instant messages. When I barely came in I was confused and didn’t know what to do and I was behind on my work. Then I got help from Ms. Strehlow and that’s how I know how to build things like sofas , tables, walls and windows.
Hello, my name is Salvador Badger, I am an 8th grader at Lowell. I like rap music including Tupac Shakur as well as classic rock bands like the Beatles. The sports I like are basketball, football, baseball and soccer. I enjoy watching Sportcenter and other sports shows and games on television. In Second Life I have learned how to make furniture as well as a room and I am learning how to build many different objects using nothing but regular three dimensional shapes. This could help me in the real world because I now have an idea on how houses and furniture as well as other objects are really built. What I have learned in Second Life may definitely help me if I become a sculptor or a building designer as in Second Life we built a room, couch, chair, table, floor, rug, wall and lamp. In Second Life to get money which is called Linden, you have to do what is assigned to you which a lot of the time was building so you have to work for your Linden like you have to work for your money in the real world. I got my supplies by simply clicking where it says build and using the 3D shapes but you can also buy your supplies at the Lowell Depot which sells supplies. You report your work by taking pictures of what you built and sending it to your teacher by e-mail as we sent our work through epals. Last but not least you communicate by talking through a headsets’ microphone or send someone an instant message using the chat bar.
My name is Alexis Adored and I am an eighth grader at Lowell School. I like to play videogames, listen to music and play basketball. What I have learned through Second Life is how to construct and create buildings and houses. I have built a house by using geometric shapes and putting them together to make them look like I want them to look. These experiences will help me in life because I am learning techniques to become an architect and interior designer. Every few days Ms. Strehlow gives us an assignment and if we complete it she gives us Linden dollars. If you don’t you don’t get paid. You can use Linden to buy clothing and buy building materials. We can share materials with friends. We report our work by taking pictures of our work while we are working. We communicate by sending instant messages.
I’m Teddy Canucci from the Second Life program. I am in the eighth grade at Lowell School. What I have learned and what I am going to learn in the Second Life program was how to make a living room. This living room contains a couch, a chair, a carpet, a floor and a wall. We also learned how to make exact width, length, and height measurements. In the program we have an assignment that we have to do or make to get paid money that will let us, the workers, be able to buy carpeting and wood textures at the Lowell Depot where we buy different textures to place on our creations and to use for our future projects. After we have completed our project we take snapshots of it in order to show our work, our progress, and to get some Linden money. What I am learning right now is how to create a house using a floor plan to guide me and my workmates to build a house fit for four people. From basic shapes such as spheres and cubes we widen and flatten them to form the shape of an object we are building. To communicate to my workmates we have to type out what we want to say. This is not easy. You have to be exact with what you say or they might misunderstand. You can share your materials by giving some to someone. You can also sell objects and materials too. Then we add textures to them to create a room or an object to make it look like it can be a real man made object. This can help me prepare for the future to be able to build at exact measurements without making too many mistakes. If I was building a house for example, it will allow me to visualize what a plan would look like and be able to put everything in its place without making guesses. If I work for a company that builds houses I already have prior knowledge to use to make the house or object and some people do not have the knowledge that I have now so I might be able to use it when I get older and I am looking for work to do to get money. Some of the people that are using the Second Life program are in college or high school and I already know this, not as a master, but I have learned quite a bit of information to take from this.
Hello my name is Junior Jupiter. In Second Life, I have learned many things. I have learned how to build things out of 3D prims which are basic shapes. Since the last time that I wrote, I have learned how to work as a team with my partner in building a house. Sometimes, I buy building supplies, but other times my partner buys them. We are working as a team to build a house. He is building part of the house and I am building another. This would help me in the real world if I wanted to be an architect. This program is very much like real life in a way that there are real objects with actual sizes. I learned how to put prims to fit together without overlapping so that the finished product looks good and fits together properly. I earn money by recording my work by taking snapshots. With the money I could buy whatever it is that I want to buy, whether it be clothing or building supplies. In Second Life, I have built walls, a couch, a bed, a coffee table, and two seats. I built the couch from cubes, semi circles, and semi cylinders. I built the bed from cubes and a semi cylinder. The walls are cubes that have been flattened, hollowed, and stretched out. I bought all my supplies from a store called the Lowell Depot. It is a hardware store on an island in Second Life. In order to get Linden, I have to take snapshots or pictures and send them to my email address. I spend my money by buying supplies. There is no other way that I can spend my money in something that is useful. I share materials with my partner so that we can build the house with same textures so we don’t spend double the money for the same thing. I report my work by sending the snapshots to my email address and Ms. Strehlow checks them. Ms. Strehlow is our Second Life teacher. In Second Life, I communicate by instant messaging other people.
Hello my name is Christian Viper. I like to play football, soccer, and basketball. My goal is to play high school football. Here in advanced computers I have learned how to make beds, couches, houses, tables, and walls from scratch in Second Life. We were taught how it feels to be an architect creating a building and to read floor plans. Ms. Strehlow and Mrs. Baron have taught me how to use Gimp to make a name or word look cool and make it look all glittery. We have started to build a scale model with the floor plans laid out. We have learned to put texture on the objects we build. In Second Life I learned that you can change how you look, from your hair to your shoes you can change just about anything. When we take snapshots of what we are building we get Linden. Linden is money in Second Life. In Second Life you can fly into the sky and call your friends if you and they have a headset on with a microphone. You can go to the Lowell Depot and buy wood textures, glass textures, carpet textures and regular textures. We each have an email account on a website called epals.com. We are also on ning.com where we can post comments and send messages to each other. In Second Life Ms. Strehlow is the head of our Second Life Island and can get in with us any time. When we barely started we started out building a living room set. We built it with a plain cube to start with and we started shaping it into what we wanted. We clicked on a tab on the bottom of the screen that said build and we picked the cube shape or the others that are there. We earn Linden by taking snapshots of what we make. We spend Linden by buying supplies and buying stuff from other people. Yes you may share stuff because sometimes you need what other people don’t. You report your work by sending progress of what you are doing to your epals.com email. We communicate by clicking on the communicate tabs at the bottom of the screen.
I want to introduce myself. My name is Denise R, and I’m in Mrs. Kellerman’s home room. She is a very nice teacher to me and so are Mrs. Baron and Ms. Strehlow because they all help me with what I need help with and when I’m in trouble or in danger. I love playing volleyball, basketball. I’m a nice person if you would like to be my friend then you can. In advanced class I have been learning about making furniture and just building things like some people do. I have also learned in Second Life that you can earn Linden money for making the furniture. I have learned that in this activity you can make good friends by communicating and chatting to them and just being nice to them. You can learn how to make furniture in the future by practicing this activity. It also helps you because when you buy furniture for your house you will have to know where to put your furniture and how it will be organized in your very own place. I have learned in this activity that you can have your very own freedom by building furniture, communicating, and just exploring. When you are on this activity you have to take pictures and send them to Ms. Strehlow. This activity also helps me because when you do 3-D shapes you would have to make the shape even on all the sides. If you want to get Linden then you would have to make more furniture and you would have to be careful of what you do in order to get it. One way you can spend your Linden is you can go to Lowell Depot and buy fabrics and stuff. The materials you need for this activity is the size, shape, color, fabric and many other things in order to make your furniture and earn Linden. Last but not least I enjoy being in this activity because it kind of gives me a fresh start because as I get older and get my own place I will already know what to do because of this Second Life activity. I’m going to say this out of my very own words, I think that this will be great for anybody because it will help them in things they don’t even know about yet but they will know in the future, when people go to their house they will be amazed and like wow how did you learn how to make furniture and fabrics, the person that owns the house will probably say I learned how to make furniture and fabrics by practicing on this Second Life activity. And then the other person will be jealous and would want to copy or just does a little like the other person.
Hello. My name is Jonathan Frostbite and in the real world I like to play video games, play sports like basketball, baseball and football. I also like listening to music from famous artists like Linkin Park, Guns ‘n’ Roses, Michael Jackson and L’il Wayne. In Second Life I have learned how to build homes and furniture for me and other people. In the real world this could help me by learning how to build homes, make furniture and how to put different textures on chairs, couches, and beds. In the Second Life program I built a wall with a seashell texture and I bought a window at a store like place called Lowell Depot were you could buy different textures, windows, rugs for your floor, bed, chairs, and couches. I built the chairs, walls, and a bed for me by clicking a 3-D object like a square, rectangle, sphere and a pyramid. We communicate by talking into our headset with a microphone or we could send them an instant message just like MySpace, Twitter, and Face book. In real life my important goal is to finish school, high school, and college to get a degree in dentistry so I could be a professional dentist.
Hello, my name is Damian Ashmoot and I am a user in Second Life. I like to play football and my favorite football team is the Jacksonville Jaguars. I want to play quarter back. My favorite football player is Brett Favre. I like to watch movies. I am a big fan of action and comedy movies. I like some animated movies. My favorite movie is Super Bad. I like to listen to rock. I listen to most types of rock. In advanced computers we have learned how to build things in Second Life .We also learned some computers skills in Second Life. I learned how to make couches, walls and chairs. We make these objects by clicking build and putting it in the size we want it to be. We also learned how to color and put textures on the objects we create. We learned how to use Gimp. In Gimp we wrote our name and made it a different color. We added glitter in the middle of the letter. We also put shine on our name. We got our customized name on our shirts in Second Life. In Second Life we can buy equipment by getting Linden. We get Linden by taking pictures or posting comments or information on Epals. When we get Linden we can go to the Lowell Depot and buy carpet, glass, wood, and tiles. Once we buy equipment we can share with a friend. They can give you something then you can give them something. So far I have shared with Claudio and Teddy. We also can chat with friends. We can talk in private or in public.
