VSTE building Institute Day 1

We had a guest builder lined up for July who was going to teach us to use sculpties to create new avatars for ourselves. I was really looking forward to it. The builder is a really fun character himself, and though, sometimes inappropriate, always entertaining. During our team meeting when he talked to us about what he would like to do, he walked on our board room table like it was a runway. He's just a hoot! Sadly was unable to participate in the project and backed out just days before it was to take place. Mandie got Kip (Pikskate in SL) to rescue us! Because he has class on Mondays he could only build with us on Wednesdays. So Mandie decided to create a four day building institute. She would help members create something that would use skills similar to the ones Pikskate would need from us on Wednesdays. This was the first day. We created what looked like two trees on one prim. We learned that a prim can be manipulated to form a flat right angle and a transparent texture can make one side of a prim invisible. Handy to know.

Quest Atlantis

My Quest Atlantis training has begun. This is not about Second Life but I learned about it in SL so I will blog about it a little. Here you see my class in QA waiting for everyone to make it in. We are all in white because we haven't yet earned the right to wear other clothing. Everyone can see that we are newbies. Quest Atlantis is a virtual world for 9 to 15 year olds. It teaches Internet safety, global awareness, the responsibilities of citizenship, and curriculum. Teacher train in pairs to learn how to bring Quest Atlantis successfully to students. My gifted resource teacher is my partner. We have to learn to walk and fly, communicate, and complete quests. Flying from a Mac laptop is challenging. I have done it once successfully and can not seem to repeat the performance. I have done two quests and have two to go. I'm doing one of them with Soulstar as a co-quest. I'm very excited at the prospect of bringing this to fifth graders at my school.

Thunder Traps Kiwi

Kiwi was my mentor when I was a newbie in Second Life (see http://thunderliving.blogspot.com/2008/02/how-does-this-happen.html and other early posts). While I have rented various parcels, bought land, and tried several houses on my island, Kiwi has always stood on the top of his bank at cybrary city. He's always there, or his avatar is. Very often he's in fact AFK and his avie is unattended. ;-) That's where I come in! It's great fun, okay my life is not very exciting at times, to go bump him off his building and see how long it takes him to notice. He awakens and sees me as Queen of the Hill, laughs, and we get to talk for a few minutes before I find someone else to bother. On this particular day he was gone a long time and I had nothing special to entertain me so... I enclosed him in a box. He came to in the dark and couldn't walk out. He used the map to TP to a nearby spot, but it was a fun moment.