SL Tour Galaxy

For Quest 5 in SL I thought it was cool to explore the galaxy. I did the Space & Galaxy tour. 
It started with the Astronomy Gallery which looked so real & gives you that feel of actually being in space. I took this shot that I really liked:



There was a planetarium which had a lot of different things to  explore and seeing the planets so close up with every detail was intriguing. My favorite destination of the tour was the SL Planetarium Dome. It was really nice in there seeing the planets up close. It felt like when I went to the space station in St. Louis and we went in the dome and could see the stars and different aspects of the galaxy. I stay in that destination the longest & it didn't hurt that some other people were just relaxing in there as well enjoying the view. Here's a pic I took:


In two of the destinations there were little night club type areas with dance floors & bar area that I thought was a neat idea to add some variety to the tour. Overall I really liked it, it took longer for the full destinations to upload all of the items, but I expected that since it had a lot of info to upload. I was very surprised at the detail even the NASA information center, it provided background info regarding space related history & milestones.

 Overall I really enjoyed it and liked being able to travel to all of the connected locations and look at the information about different planets and overall space related info in general. I enjoyed this tour to say the least!!!

SL QUEST 4

I just did a basic clothes change into a jacket and jeans, this part was a little bit more slower and "glitchy" & the clothes did come up, but took a while.

SL QUEST 3

Now that I see how cool SL really is & can actually enjoy my explorations on my Mac,

I like the functionality of it & really like how real it looks, the pic below is in the LionHeart's Railroad Tunnel that I happened to stumble upon. It sounded like a real railroad track and everything. I like how vivid and vibrant the colors/pictures are. It keeps you interested in moving forward. In the first part I liked the Ol Wise Owl, for some reason I couldn't pick the ball up though.

Thought the train coming my way was cool, glad I wasn't on the  track.

One thing I did notice on this quest was I accidently hit some of the F buttons at the top of the keyboard and noticed it had my avatar make different sounds & say different words. For example: F5 said, "WOW" & F6 said "Get Loss...kinda cool!!

Second Life QUEST 2

                                                             BEFORE

Functionality was still the same, but I liked going to and exploring different objects/items. I had an issue with the camera it kept giving me an error that that I didn't have enough money to put the pictures in my inventory so not sure where I went wrong there, but the only other options for the picture was to send it to my email or save it. I am able to navigate a little better and adjust the different views to move around and see things better.

Understanding the different camera views and ways to moved helped me a lot. but I did have an issue with the game freezing or taking forever for me to make one simple move while on my windows laptop.

AFTER!!!!!

***Tonight  though  (12/7) when using my Mac, I found that after installing the updated version of Second Life it works TONS better on an Imac yaaaayy!! I can walk fast, spin fast, fly fast...EVERYTHING is tons faster without all of the glitching so SUPER excited about second life now. And low & behold......       


                  A PICTURE: TADAAAAA!!

Just me flying around Dr. Z's area.....

I'm a Gamer....so I thought!!!!

The new game I tried was L.A Noire, now recently I've been on The Sims mode and really enjoy playing that series of game. I tried L.A Noire which is where you are a detective from 1940's and you have to try and solve different crimes. The game is very indepth and detailed and you have to piece together the right pieces of the puzzle to get ANYWHERE in the game. It was so interesting because you even have to discover which witness is telling you the truth or not based on the answers they provide, one wrong guess prevents you from moving forward properly in the game. So it was definitely interesting and difficult, but made me use  my brain.

I liked getting the hands on knowledge of what a detective job entailed at that time. I don't feel like I was in the flow of the game at all!!!! There were chasing scenes and fighting scenes where I had to apprehend suspects and I had no coordination to be able to do that effectively. I also found it hard to select which witness responses were believable given the clues discovered at the crime scene.

This game was fun, but definitely stressed me out because there were times when an object was right in front of me and it took me FOREVER to figure out where it was. So it definitely was a test of visual and mental awareness. It made me think about what ways gaming can be incorporated into technology, you have to find a game that can benefit all individuals, so maybe having a variety of games and letting students test out which one sparks their interests and seems like something they can do is better. I enjoyed my gaming, but think I picked too hard of a game 8)


Truly,
dpledge

The World is Flat...Well We're Getting There!!!!

I've heard a good deal about the innovation of technology in regards to education and it being "flat". By seeing all of the projects and experiments going on with technology world wide, I am a believer that a flat world is the right way to go as far as education goes. It's a great way to share information about other cultures and collaborate from where you are instantly without spending mega bucks to take a visit. I would have loved to sit in my classroom and collaborate with a student from China or Africa etc. That would be the best experience ever!! I think with the way technology is evolving it's making this type of collaboration more attainable and can prove as a true learning experience. We can finally throw out the old history books and actually get a current depiction of what we need to know.  I'm all for the flat world, I hope this is something heavily incorporated when my daughter enters school because it would be a great thing to follow and be apart of as a parent. Cheers to being flat!!

Truly,
dpledge

Technology in Education????

I use technology in both a classroom and corporate form as far as education goes.  At work we have many trainings that incorporate online simulations and audio features to help enhance the training. I think my employer does a great job of finding online resources that fit directly with the concepts being learned. For instance I just went through a mobile phone training for the mobile app that was launched and there was a simulation of the iphone where we could literally go through each option of the phone to see what a customer would experience. We have the live phone image on our computer screen where we could make selections and navigate as if we had the actually had the phone in our hand. We saw all the error messages and tabs....very cool and great example of just how far technology has come!!!

Of course in class, being in an online class has no choice, but to offer a plethora of technology. That way learners can tap into their own learning and even explore other opportunities to enhance their learning. Being able to explore new mediums helps all students in the classroom instead of settling on one main method and trying to make it fit for everyone.

Truly,

dpledge