What have learned so far?

I didn't know what to expect from the class this semester - especially teaching inside a virtual world. I knew that the normal issues (crowd control, focus, etc) would be important, but there was also the technological side to overcome. What happens when only some of the class can access the technology? What if there is an issue with the computers in the lab where we're teaching?

There have been some big technical issues, to be sure. Second Life certainly has more than its fair share of problems, and their servers tend to get overloaded when there are a lot of logins - which happens to be right when class meets. When I first began exploring SL, a high usage was about 20,000 at once. There was a lot of talk about the 30,000 barrier. Would the technology even allow such a thing? Today it is not unusual to see 70,000 logged onto the grid when class starts!

What does it mean if there are server issues on the Linden Lab side? Well, everything is effected: inventory, clothing, appearance, building and editing...it makes the experience quite frustrating, especially for new residents (like our class!).

On SCSU's side, we've had to deal with an odd bug in the cache that causes our computers to think that SL is already running. SL is limited to running in only one window (although there are methods of getting around this) and so we've had to learn how to delete our caches before we logon. The downside to this is that it takes a lot longer for everything to download.

In the classroom we've had some rocky moments. I've been very close to banning laptops in class - far too often it isn't a technical issue with SL that has caused a student to be unable to logon, it's been Spore, or some other application. I'm hopeful that those issues won't rear their ugly head again, but I'm on the lookout!

Once everyone gets logged on, it's utter chaos...wonderful and disturbing! In any learning situation it's difficult to manage 12 different personalities who learn at different rates (and in different ways) but for the most part we've managed to get most of the tasks completed. As I expected, some enjoy the social aspects, some enjoy the building, some creating clothing...

I could go on and on - but the bottom line is that I've loved every minute of it and I hope that the students have too! Now I'm headed back online...SL keeps crashing as I try to return the hundreds of objects that have been left all over my land :)