The second life experience

So yesterday evening I decided to try out Second Life! I felt a bit hestitant to download and install it because I heared so many bad things over the years. But curiosity got the better of me and so I decided to see if it was really that bad. I will divide my experiences on the following three topics,

My general experience

The posibility for designer

The possibilities for distance learning

General experience

Booting second life makes me scared
People are sitting on the weirdest places
Feels kinda weird to walk around a place in second life.. like your sneaky or something... why is this feeling?
The controls are really weird and not like any game I played previously
My head is always down because it follows my mouse and the camera button is on the button of the interface..
I grew bored of places because there were no people to be found
I have to touch everything but somethings I can't touch??
Haha, I decided to visit a live classical performance.. what do I get Toni Braxton... :-(

Possibilities for a designer

You have the oppurtunity to design yourself (outfit and appearance)
Customize everything, from socks, to hair, pants, eyebrows, etc.
You can edit your profile
I changed into some Bollywood-themed clothes, just because I can!
You can leave your digital fingerprint with leaving notes and making adjustments to the surrounding of some objects
Most of the time the build function is turned off though

Possibilities for distance learning

In the destination guide I filtered for the educational spots
I went to the University of Texas because I would love to get a feel of the size of a real American college campus!
This is enormous!!
I also looked for destination that includes science and I went to one from Nasa in California where you were able to learn more about jet propulsion laboratory and to experience the Apollo Moon landing
But of course, as it turns out nobody seems to be interested in learning.. they are probably at the aphrodiziac beach

As a conclusion: I find the possibility to learn through a simulated world intriguing. I think it's oke to learn in a way for a small period of time, maybe for one course. But here are some drawbacks I found:

It might be harder to ask questions to the teacher since you don't know him/her on a more personal level
Or for some it's easier, so you ask a lot instead of finding out for yourself
Not everybody has played a game before and isn't used to moving a avatar around
I rather have yourself, maybe via webcam, as avatar, sitting in digital school benches.

I think college life is something you have to experience before you go on with digital learning. College life has a big influence on how you life your life, what your dreams are and sometimes thats where you meet friends that last a lifetime! That's why I do not see a digital way of learning taking over soon.