Leading a Double Life?

It seems that Second Life in many ways is like leading a double life. Or is it? My Avatar, Dembe, is looking more and more like me everyday, with the exception of her clothing choices that is. But what can you expect all of Dembe’s clothes in SL are free. I have to pay for mine in RL so I am a little more selective.

Dembe is now a blonde, she wears glasses, and she has my skin tone, nose and freckles. Wow – getting scary. Not really, we still have many differences – I think? Her feet are smaller than mine and her eyes are a blue/aqua color. Oh, and I tend to wear more make-up – sometimes. Okay – okay – so she is a virtual mini me. I admit it.

My Advatar, Dembe, like me likes to see pictures of herself taking part in educational planning meetings. She looked at a picture posted from an ISTE meeting held at 6PM Pacific Time on February 6th. Dembe is in the second row, second resident from the left in the picture. Dembe is wearing a pink top and jeans in the picture she is looking at. She is sitting next to a RL colleague who's Advatar is on her left.

One thing I have noticed is that more people than I thought are on SL. It seems that I am beginning to meet up with more and more RL friends and colleagues in SL. Take for example Victoria, in SL we went sailing together last night. Victoria rented a sail boat from Hollywood and sent me a Teleport to join her. I was very excited by this offer and accepted immediately.

Once I arrived, landed and was seated in the boat properly we where off on an adventure!

We almost had a boating accident on the virtual ocean. It was quiet scary. I have to say it was not Victoria's fault in any way. She is a very responsible sailor and has been taking sailing lessons in SL. However, her sailing coach is currently on vacation in Rome in RL with his son.

However, I must admit that Victoria is doing very well with sailing. She is new at sailing in SL, but I would have never know it if she did not tell me. So, it just goes to show that she is a quick learner in SL just like in RL. Victoria, just and FYI, I was very impressed with your sailing and maneuvering skills in SL last night.

Victoria and I also attended a mixer together last night for ISTE in SL. A group we both belong to in RL and SL.

ISTE stands for International Society for Technology in Education. More information on ISTE can be obtained at http://www.iste.org/. It was interesting to see people act the same way at mixers for business in SL as in RL. Food and drinks where a must and we had a selection of about seven different drinks and foods to choose from. (Thanks KittyGloom - the owner of ISTE in SL. ) There was lots of networking going on for academic institutions and a discussion of what each institution was doing in SL and plans for the future. I even met a gentleman named Romulus last night that was doing his Dissertation at Miami University on Second Life and Social Networking and the effect it can have on learning. A very interesting and timely topic. After mixing with a number of Avatars, I found that many people work for institutions that have islands on SL. However, it seems that many of these institutions now have private islands and you need approval to get access to these institution’s instructional islands.

The mixer was located on Eduisland home to ISTE. I have to give Eduisland a rating of 5+ just for the ideas and development and educational usefulness in SL. Educational institutions that belong to Eduisland include the following:

1. University of Delaware & Cochise College

2. New York University (SCPS/McGhee Div.)

3. ARISEnet Teachers Group

4. G D Hines College of Architecture (Univ of Houston)

5. Glendale Community College, Maricopa CCD

6. Empire State College, SUNY

7. Fiction Alley (NYC)

8. Education Media Lab, Montana State University

9. George Washington University

10. Center for Advanced Technology in Education, Univ. of Oregon

11. International Society for Technology in Education

12. University of Hawaii at Manoa, School of Communications

13. Otis College of Art and Design

14. Johnson & Wales University (Charlotte, NC)

15. NC State University (National Extension Initiative)

16. Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology (New Zealand)

17. Loyalist College (Canada)

18. University of Cincinnati (affiliated)

19. Stanford University Libraries

I was fascinated and excited to see the schools that have an educational interest in Second Life. I was beginning to get a little discouraged since much of Dembe's adventures in SL thus far have been to very “mature” adult type settings. These settings do not appeal to me in RL, so I have not been very happy with my Advatars exposure to them in SL. In addition, shopping seemed to be a very big event in SL. Since I am really not into shopping in RL, I have to admit I do not see the thrill of shopping in SL.

Dembe