Second LIfe

Last night I was bored so I redid my hair to make sure I looked good. Put on my new clothes and went out for a walk. It was getting late and though I was broke I decided to hang out at the shopping centre.

There were a few shops open, but nothing much interested me. I was about to fly home, until I was approached by some weirdly dressed guy. He asked me where I was going and then barred my way. He offered to sort my hair out and sell me something called 'lash'. I declined and offered my apologies and tried to move on. And again he barred my way. By now I was getting a bit nervous.

OK, by now you have probably realised this did not take place in Lakeside or Stratford. Though actually, I have had some very weird experiences at Stratford after dark. No, this was second life. My first journey into the avatar based chat room/ simulation game thingy.

The guy in question imprisoned me in a cage, at which my computer crashed and I then received a snooty email form Tiscali about overusing my broadband. Despite these issue, it had been rather exciting experience up until this point. I could fly from Island to Island. I could jump off high buildings and best of all I could eaves drop in the conversations of others. I know there are people who have become millionaires in the Second life world and people have even found partners.

Before I move on, I want to say that a couple of things disturbed me about second life. Firstly it can be hugely addictive but then computers and the Internet are anyway, we wont get away from that. Though it did occur to me that there were things more pressing in my own first life that I didn't attend to because I was living my second life. The other issue was that there was no force of morality in Second life, without a God things were a good deal darker shall we say. Or maybe that was just because I was approached by the nasty man late at night.

Simulation software such as this has always been with us in Education. i remember exploring Mickey's world in school and least we forget the Crystal Rainforest. Now we have Myst creeping in from Left field, ushered in by Tim Rylands and his high results for his pupils. What a scoop, some ICT that has truly cracked boys writing. I tried MYST and couldn't get excited. I have looked @ 2Simulate and felt it was a far more versatile programme, though it is different to a conventional simulation game and is more of a discussion platform/ writing stimulus tool.

And there is the Island or 'Geography Island' from RM. I am keen to see this in action as the guys from RM, who visited me last week where raving about it.



If you fancy second life then visit: secondlife.com

And here you can watch a video about the new Lego Mindstorms Robot in Second Life- oh joined up ICT nirvana or what