Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
if they are gathered in a computer lab together
for the purpose of getting introduced to SL),
after 10 accounts are created, Linden Labs will
automatically shut off any new account creation
from that IP range. This means that accounts will
need to be created in advance by the trainers or
the participants. (This particular issue has been
discovered by many a trainer only once he or she
is in a lab with the people to be trained!)
Many educational institutions employ filters
and firewalls specifically designed to keep social
networking sites such as blogs, Facebook, and
Second Life out. The primary reason for these
filters is federal legislation that requires schools
to use filters. However, no legislation specifi-
cally requires that Second Life be filtered out of
schools. In many school districts, however, the
filter is taken as an absolute determiner of what
is allowed and what is not. Even in those schools
with procedures in place for adding sites to the
“safe” list, it may not be simple technologically
to allow Second Life to be used in the school.
Without support from the director of technology
and the technical support staff, teachers are going
to find it very hard to use Second Life with their
students, even in a limited way.
Another factor that makes it difficult to sustain
an institutional commitment to Second Life is
that Linden Labs releases updates to the program
periodically. While some of these updates are
optional, a few are not; and the new version must
be downloaded and installed before anyone can
enter Second Life. This makes it impossible to
put Second Life as part of an “image” that gets
restored to lab computers each day (as many
schools do, using programs such as Deep Freeze).
Also, some updates introduce new features and/or
changed menus or screens that can confuse users,
and it certainly happens that new updates actually
introduce new bugs into the system.
Yet another aspect of Second Life that might
get in the way of educators and librarians who
wish to use it with students or for professional
development is what has been called the “snicker
factor” (Cunningham, 2007). Because Second Life
is used primarily as an entertainment venue, and
because much of the activity that takes place in
Second Life is organized around dating, relation-
ships, and sex, people who are not familiar with
Second Life's educational aspects often “snicker”
when an educator tries to describe its educational
value. It takes perseverance for an early adopter
of SL to convince his or her colleagues to come
into the world even once, let alone to make an
institutional commitment to SL. Our guess is that
this will continue to be the case until a critical
mass of educators (beyond the early adopters of
technologies) have experienced Second Life for
themselves, or until enough anecdotal evidence
of Second Life's educational value is accumu-
lated such that major public organizations (such
as state-run virtual high schools or major school
systems) make big investments.
Some Recommendations for
Using Second Life effectively
Perhaps the most important recommendation
that we can make is that you introduce new us-
ers (students and teachers) to Second Life in a
face-to-face computer lab situation where you
can better assist them with getting acclimated to
the world, demonstrate various techniques while
talking about what you are doing, and immedi-
ately respond to any unexpected or unwelcomed
eventuality. New users are often bewildered by the
interface, and easily get disoriented or confused
by other avatars in the world, by the expectations
of Orientation Island, or by the different ways
(keyboard, menus, mouse) to interact through the
interface. Also, many users will be bothered by
the delays in seeing things “rez,” or resolve on
the screen (this delay is known as “lag”); you can
reassure them that everything is working normally,
and show them that lag varies by location. We also
suggest that you have new users enter through
ISTE. Beginners will “rez” meters away from ISTE
Island Headquarters, where docents are on duty to
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