Me Tech, You Tech: Making Virtual Objects in a Virtual Class

It was not like any I have attended. I learned how to make a bedroom mirror-dresser in a class conducted in a park! An entirely new experience, really. Not because furniture-making is non-techie in my list, nor because a park is an unlikely venue for a carpentry class. What's unique about it is, everything was virtual! My virtual self, together with my virtual classmates, learned how to make our own virtual mirror-dressers ...in a virtual park ...in a virtual world called Second Life. (With 5 virtuals in a sentence, who's gonna miss my point ?)

In the above Second Life (SL) snapshot, my second-self is the avatar seated along the middle row, 2nd from left. As you can see, virtual-me was having newbie issues. I had not made my mirror yet, and my dresser looked like something you can put a dead body in.

The class was an SL educational event at Technical User Interfacing (TUi), an educational SL region that regularly conducts classes on how to make virtual objects such as tables, lamps, magic poles and pickle bucket toilets ...whatever those are.

The class teacher was seated on my right. She "talked" with us via the Local Chat window which allowed newbies like me to catch up by scrolling back to previous instructions. The Local Chat was like a YM (Yahoo Messenger) group chat where I can "hear" classmates talking with the teacher, and among each other. And then there is the IM (Instant Messenger) window/tab where I received a private message from one of my virtual classmates inviting me to join her study group.

There is a real person in every SL avatar in the class. Each with his own reason for attending the class - curiosity, to make virtual friends and to learn new things. (Like making virtual mirror-dressers, perhaps?!) One classmate declared (via the Local Chat) that she had long been wanting to have her own mirror-dresser and that she would be bringing with her the finished project. Hmm, good idea... So here's a snapshot of the sexy virtual-me with my first "hand-made" virtual object. How cool is that?! Want to make virtual objects in SL with me?