We kicked off our time in SecondLife today in Qualitative Research class

They all made it off orientation island - that's a great way to start the semester.

Today we went to the New Resident Q&A hosted by Bob Bonderfeld, who has been in SecondLife since 2003 when it was in beta. I sent him an IM asking if it was ok for us all to come; sometimes a space isn't set up to handle more than 20 people.

We met in an outdoor plaza. Bob had a lot of chairs set out that we just needed to left click on to sit. He was using voice chat - we didn't have any mics but we had speakers so we could hear his commentary and the students typed their questions. They asked questions related to their research project topics and got some good advice.

Some had trouble seeing the chairs (or maybe they just had trouble sitting still) The students were laughing and talking and helping each other out which is exactly what I want to see develop over the semester.

Here's a photo one of the students took during the session - Thanks Sly Deezul

In the next couple of weeks we will observe other types of classes locations and cultures in SecondLife.