Lighthouse Learning Island: July 2007

Friday, July 20, 2007

Object Bonus

I discovered, as the estate owner, that I could give more prims to each of the parcels of land on the island, altough the total can still only be 15,000. This is a setting in the estate owner's menu system (object bonus), and will work in this case since I will monitor the common space to keep the prims down, thus allowing more prims for each district.

Each school district now has 2966 prims on their parcel and the sandbox has 840, thus leaving 2296 for the common area (which already houses 1164 prims).

However, I will still be the prim monitor for the island! I know that numbers of prims have been a problem in shared spaces before, so I will be watching! :-)

Kathy

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Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Building Discoveries

I had created a simple map of the island that is located at the main telehub for the island. Today I decided to add individual teleports to the locations on the island to the map board. I do not really like those little teleport "balls" that hang next to teleport boards.

I came up with an interesting solution. I created a series of thin, transparent overlays to place over each of the areas of the sign, and put the teleport script in each transparent object. Now it looks like you are clicking directly on the sign to teleport!

Then I learned two new things. I wanted to move a copy of the sign to other spots on the island so I linked the 8 parts. I moved the sign, but the teleport scripts no longer worked. I figured out that you may not be able to link objects with different scripts (makes sense) so, once I unlinked, and just locked the parts, the teleport scripts worked again.

However, I then found out the teleports on the new signs no longer TP'ed to the correct location! Since the locations are absolute locations, I could not figure out why. I opened the scripts, tried the "reset" button, and all was well! So, I guess the teleport script takes into consideration where the sign is located, and the locations I typed in are actually relative to the location of the sign.

I am betting this is already written down, step-by-step, in the SL Knowledge Base somewhere. But I enjoy experimenting, making mistakes, and most importantly, getting it right!

Kathy Schrock

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Saturday, July 14, 2007

Interesting read...

Came across these two sample chapters from a new book entitled "A Beginner's Guide to Second Life". I learned one new thing (my goal for each day), so I decided to go ahead and buy the e-book version to read on an upcoming cross-country plane ride. Take a look at the chapters and decide for yourself. You can also purchase the print book from Amazon.

Today I worked a bit more on Lighthouse Learning Island and decided to add a relaxation area on the Nauset Public Schools land for the teachers after a hard day of professional development-- beach towels, picnic tables and a grill, a hammock, some beach balls to play with, and some deck chairs. Gotta have down-time even in SL!

I am almost done with my plot of land, and have to start ramping up my ideas and methodologies for getting my teachers comfortable enough with the environment and navigation so they can attend and collaborate in SL on a regular basis.

More to follow...

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Thursday, July 12, 2007

Reflections on Days 1 and 2

Things I have learned that might be of help to another school district or consortium trying to share an island.

1.
Terraforming land is easy, once you know how to do it. (Read the Knowledge Base!) Of course, as one who ALWAYS consults the Second Life Knowledge Base, I made the mistake yesterday of editing the terrain of the island, much of which was way underwater, by "raising land" piece by piece. Do not do it this way! There is a simple way to get most of it done quickly and then tweak it to your specific needs.

2.
We have four school districts on the island, each of which wants (and needs) to be able to control their own parcel of land and objects on the land. For example, if one district is having a professional development session that is closed to everyone else, they want to be able to allow access only to their teachers. This is all done through the creation of multiple groups and some new roles within the groups.

I am the estate owner, which makes me all-powerful, so it was hard for me to try out the permissions I was granting. Thanks to Majen Hammond (Pia Klaar SL) and Beth Knittle (Beth Kohnke SL) for working with me on the testing. I have created 5 groups, one for each of the school districts and one for the on-island sandbox where our teachers can learn to build. I am the owner of all 5 groups, and have created a teeny bit lesser role, called Tech Director, which gives each district at least one super-user to set permissions, return items, manage the parcel access and ban lists, and more. We will see if this set-up works. I have to keep activating the specific group when I want to move something across parcel lines so I guess I did it right!

One tip for those of you who may be thinking of doing something like this. I left the outside edge and along the walkways, between the parcels, as part of the original estate. This greatly helps when I need to place something for the good of all in the common areas.

3. I have learned as much new stuff in the past two days as I have in the four months I have been in Second Life. This island adventure is not to be taken lightly!

Please come visit:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Lighthouse%20Learning%20Island/6/134/24

All professional development opportunities, come September, will be posted as notices in the "K-12 Educators" group in SL, so please join that group if you are interested!

Here is quick photo thus far: