Woohoo! I'm in! I got the notice today that when I logged in, I'd be on the Teen Grid. Good thing I've spent HOURS these past few days loading up my avatar with clothes, buildings, textures, furniture...everything I could think of. Last night I spent time putting it all into boxes so it would be easy to find and unpack once I migrated.

So now I'm there...on the AccelerateNation islands run by the Wayne-Finger Lakes BOCES. They've had someone else build on their 4-sim set (unfortunately...I wanted the kids to learn from the ground up, but I'm flexible) and I now have a list of a bunch of "errors" or "mistakes" that need correcting. The worst one was a teleport that 1) jumped me to the wrong building and 2) put me in a trench UNDER the wrong building, so I couldn't get out. Since I don't yet have building permissions, I couldn't rez a box and use it to lift me out (a trick I learned years ago in SL...yes, I've been in bad tp situations before). Only way out was to quit SLTG and log in again. Oh! And the main log-in doesn't seem to work either. I keep getting the message that the location is "unavailable" and it will put me close. I enter right beside the outside wall of a building, so I suspect the builders put a structure over the original log-in point and never changed it. Another "error" that needs to be cleaned up. Believe me, I'm making a list!

Can't wait to actually get in and start preparing stuff for early lessons. I'm thinking a scavenger hunt fairly early on. Something to get them moving around the islands to see what's there, while learning how to pick up notecards/objects along the way. Of course first will be lessons in learning how to fly, move, and use that pie chart. Although I suspect fixing one's appearance also needs to be pretty close to the front, too :).

Cool! I feel like I've been treading water for the past few weeks, although I know I've done far more than that. I have literally tens of thousands of free textures, thousands of individual pieces of clothing for both guys and girls, hundreds of pieces of furniture and decorations...all of which took time to gather and sort (I think I've managed to get rid of all the non-PG stuff, but need to unpack the boxes and be sure. But I need permissions to build first 'cause right now I can't rezz ANYthing!).

Now, however, the actual lesson plan creation begins and for a teacher, that's the fun part. The research is done (although on-going. New information is always coming out about the societal/educational/business applications of SL), the materials gathered (although I *know* there is something I'm going to wish I had time to pick up), now it's time to figure out what to do with both the research and the materials. Fun!

I'll keep posting to this blog (now that I finally remembered the password) as time goes on and keep this as my official record of work in-world. To that end...here are my hours so far...

July 5th -- 52 minutes spent visiting freebie places on adult grid; collecting "stuff"
July 7th -- 2 hrs spent loading and sorting all the freebie stuff I'd collected; also visited more freebie stores and gathered more "stuff"
July 8th -- 1.5 hrs spent accepting freebies from my other avatar and sorting; made boxes of gestures, clothing, furniture, textures to unpack after the move
July 9th -- 1.5 hrs spent exploring my new home! Also spent time finding the "flaws" in the build and making notes on what needs to be fixed. Updated this blog.

Take care...this is fun!

Thespis Thespian