My First Official Class in Second Life

This evening on May 21, 2007 at 7:00p.m. C.S.T. we had our first official Special Topics Photography class for the T.S.T.C. Virtual Campus in Second Life. We gathered in the Pit area of the Commons at our T.S.T.C. campus, and our teacher Mr. Kevin Brown gave us an invitation to come over to our classroom. We went into the classroom and he instructed us to sit on the high blue bar stools.

We soon learned that we could raise our hands by using the "Page Up" command. We chuckled as our hands began to wave wildly if our teacher did not answer us immediately. When he looked up and saw us, then we could "Page Down" to put our hands down. He invited us to ask questions about each new idea that was presented.

After answering some questions about Second Life, our instructor presented a slide show about our rules for class. Then he asked us to click on a podium near the screen to get our first assignment, which was to create a journal in the form of a blog. The second assignment was from a different podium and it was to create a series of pictures in color and in black and white. The main idea for the assignment is to use lighting to create different moods.

Then after class we looked at the gallery exhibit of the black and white photography of master photographer Alfred Stiegletz. We were fascinated by the photographs of Georgia O'Keeffee in her younger days. Alfred's Story is fascinating: http://www.profotos.com/education/referencedesk/masters/masters/alfredstieglitz/alfredstieglitz.shtml

I am excited about taking this special topics class and using the T.S.T.C. Virtual Campus classroom. I will have to say that it was a bit of a challenge for me to keep up with all of the class conversation; put the name titler into my T.S.T.C. folder; type "white title" and my real name; find the assignments on the podiums, and zoom in on the projector screen. I felt like I was juggling part of the time.

Fortunately I was already familiar with many of the Second Life Functions such as creating a folder and moving things into it. I have also found it helpful to create a second inventory list so I can drag things from one to the other easily.

Well, this is the first part of the assignment that will be due next Monday. In the next few days I will be working on the photograph series to show different moods with light and shadows. I think I will enjoy this assignment.