Our First Class in Second Life

Last Monday we had our first class held within the online community program of Second Life. Going into this I had no idea what to expect. To be honest I wasn’t too fond of the program initially because of its unpolished look, lack of responsiveness, and glitchy behavior. The lag alone turned me off to using it and only kept me online long enough to figure out what I needed to be prepared for class. I tend to have little tolerance for slow and unresponsive programs. Needless to say when it came to sign on and meet with a whole class full of users, I was skeptical. Now that it’s all said and done I would have to say that this was one of the most entertaining classes I have ever experienced. Because of the interactive nature of the program, time seemed to fly by and there was no lack of activities to experience. In fact there was so much too see and do that I even stayed logged on for an hour after class ended just to explore some more.

I also noticed that being around people who are represented by digital characters makes for some interesting interactions. It seemed that many people were quicker to participate and interact with other users when they were masked by a digital representation of themselves. Meeting in Second Life did not have that traditional classroom feel. It felt like there was less of a hierarchy and that everyone participated equally without hesitation. As far as learning goes, initially I felt that I didn’t learn a whole lot, other than how to use some features in Second Life. The more I thought about it though, the more I realized that I learned much pertaining to computers and society just by observing my fellow classmates during our three hour session together. It is amazing how not shy some people will act when they feel like they are hidden within cyberspace. Just observing showed me a lot about computers and how they have affected our culture. Overall I had a lot of fun meeting in Second Life. There were many moments when I would laugh out loud, amused by the actions of another classmate. I am glad that we will be meeting more in Second Life this semester. It is a great example of how society acts inside the false reality of a computer generated world.