Squatter

I'm squatting on land for my friend Jazmemo. Yosemite found this sim reserved for educators and showed the rest of us, who were recently made homeless by the loss of Voyager by Skipper Burns. She rented a small parcel and her sister, Gator, and Gator's husband, Harry, bought one, too. I'd get one myself if I hadn't just rented a place for five weeks. Jazmemo is on vacation so I'm sitting on the parcel she wants until the owner comes back online and I can rent it for her. We can settle up when she returns. We think poor Skipper must have passed away or become incapacitated in some way. He was a very responsible region owner. Unfortunately I lost $135 real American dollars buy buying Channel. I did have it for 12 months so I guess it's not a huge loss. I have learned a lot about land use in SL. If I buy a piece of an estate or homestead again I'll be sure I know who the real person is behind the avatar and know what they have in place to ensure a longer future. If Skipper had had a partner, for instance, it would have helped.

Dewey Jung Brings Grad Students to VSTE Island

I knew Dewey might bring his current grad class to VSTE Tuesday night but I didn't know when. I really wasn't stalking when I happened into SL just before my Quest Atlantis training, but I saw he was online, remembered his hope to get to VSTE, and took a peek at VSTE on the map to see if he were there. Low and behold there was a double stack of green dots in the center of the island! I dashed over to take a couple of photos and ended up helping a couple of newbie girls with extraneous skirt removal. I also took a couple of newbie boys on a magic carpet tour and gave them a crash course in opening a box in the VSTE sandbox. I was only a few minutes late to the QA training! :P It's all in a day's work for a proud VSTE Facilitator!

Celebrity!

Bob Sprankle came to Channel Island and played Greedy with us! I'm quite impressed with myself over this! I went to ISTE Island HQ because Soulstar was there and there was a little circle of people visiting. She was among them so I joined in. I checked the profiles of everyone there that I don't already know and standing to my immediate left was Bisto, who is Bob Sprankle in RL! I learned about Bob Sprankle when I was taking a class on podcasting from UVA a couple of years ago. He was the only teacher I could find who was podcasting with kids. Since then I've seen his podcasts refered to in a number of other blogs. To me he is celebrity, a pioneer in podcasting. Fortunately he is also very nice! When I took Soulstar back to my island to play Greedy Bisto and Snowflake came, too. This photo to mark the event is courtesy of Snowflake. I LOVE SL! Where else could I meet and talk directly to educational technology experts one on one!?

Flying High with Neo

Neo is one of my two friends in Second Life from the Cleveland Freenet and Dalnet days. He's not a teacher and doesn't especially find our teacher activities interesting. After Monday's meeting I sometimes play Greedy with him or sit and talk. Tonight we went in search of an SL tour. It's fun for me to find things that you can ride around in Second Life while exploring. Your avatar just sits while you use your mouse to view the landscape. The creativity of the inhabitants in creating this world for themselves amazes me. Some tours give information while you ride.

Corvette and Constructivist Island

Corvette and I have a mutual friend, Anibal, who has a sim for Constructivist Psychotherapists in training. Here I'm showing Corvette around. He was gone from SL during the period that it was created and is rarely online the same time Anibal is, since Anibal is in a time zone about 6 hours ahead of him. This is another reason I love Second Life. Here I am showing a man in Mexico the island of a friend in Portugal. Seriously!

Neo and Amethyst

Here are two of my best friends in SL, Neo and Amethyst, enjoying a dance together at the Caribbean Breezes Club. Later we got Kiwi to join us and the four of us line danced. SL is so much fun, especially in the summer.

Mexico Live!

The person behind the avatar-also-known-as-Corvette lives in Mexico in RL. He is learning the language and immersing himself in the Mexican culture. Lately when he ventures into SL he does the same. SL does mimic RL afterall! Here we morphed back to the avatars we were when we were doing a lot of SL exploring together. I just had to record a photo of it.