The Straad Players

I discovered a hidden valley/clearing on Sea Turtle Island. The picture below doesn't really do it justice. This would be a great spot to develop some storylines. The owner of the island has given me access rights to "Straad" Valley which will help develop things.

Tomkel Tomorrow has joined the company. He has a great track record in RL so lets see how he gets on with our virtual touring company. Tomkel already turned in a story synopsis so it looks good for the future. Hey, you're only as good as your material!

I've been exploring locations on Sea Turtle Island with owner Jon Seattle. There's lots of scope for really using the terrain e.g. a character could swoop down on the clearing from a viewpoint at the head of the waterfall. There are lots of other ideas too - such as a sky platform either for rehearsal or performance, a building for props & storage of Avatars, dressing rooms.

At this point I realised there is a lot more potential in the idea. I'd still like to pursue the idea for kids expressed at the outset but we could also have performances just as in any theatre calling upon writers, designers, actors. For this reason a couple of new performers have been added to the troupe Chrisford Cazalet and Imario Indigo. I also plan to talk to some of my (real life) contacts in the performing arts world.

View down to the clearing (a potential performance area) from the head of the waterfall.

The idea has now developed somewhat. The guy who was the “Dragon Master” in the earlier episode I described has agreed to participate. This would mean equipping avatars with “outfits” and helping with development and demonstrations.

I have created two AV personas Benre Benazzi and Miaster Mielziner. These would be equipped with outfits and props so that one would be driven by the teacher with the kids and the other would drive the dragon or whatever.

These two have been given citizenship of Cedar Island and designated the role of "Puppet"

Benre and Miaster

Me giving Benre his instructions

What you will need are objects, animations and gestures tucked away in your inventory for the pre-programmed things like dances.

Objects being the "props" that you will want to display at the right moment depending on what you plan to do. Animations and gestures are really scripts that you use to turn on a movement or affect either for a set short time or until you turn it off.

Most of the larger Avatars have what is called a HUD. It's an on-screen set of things you can make your Avi do; such as in the case of a Dragon, breath fire, etc.

I got all of my avatars at two locations in world. One is the same place where you bought your Duck Avi. The other I will either take you to or at the very least provide a landmark so that you can go on your own. As you have seen, they are high quality work and the price is really reasonable for what you are getting.

The last thing you would need is to get into the beasties and become them. You don't drive them, you are them with extra controls that human forms do not have. There are a couple of tricks I have picked up along the way that will be glad to share with you.

Since I began thinking about this the owner of Cedar Island (an educational software developer) had expressed some enthusiasm and has offered to make a space on Sea Turtle Island available to experiment with the idea.(Sea Turtle Island is an adjoining research based area) He has also offered to make it restricted access thus avoiding strangers wandering in whilst children are watching.

• A policeman avatar warns of “stranger danger”.
• A fireman avatar talks about the danger of playing with matches.
• A dragon tells stories of times gone by.

Other ideas:

• Citizenship classes
• Virtual Crime Scene Investigation

Because the Avatar is a real person in real time, interaction and on the fly change to the program is possible. Other puzzles could be set about the place like a virtual quest or treasure hunt or a virtual crime scene to solve.

It seems to me this is most appropriate for younger children who are unable/not allowed to navigate such places. It could also be used for other participants who do not have the ability to navigate a virtual word but who may be happy to become a virtual tourist.

My thinking on this was affected by two bits of experimentation.

a) I showed Second Life to a group of folk singers using a projector and screen.
b) I took my 6 year old granddaughter on a visit to an island where’re I’m a community member.

I’ve been following with interest various approaches to using SL in education and it seems that it always involves the participants all having avatars “in-world”. The examples I’ve quoted involved none of the participants in acquiring accounts, usernames, passwords and avatars but they became kind of virtual tourists.

In the case of my granddaughter I engaged the services of an online friend who teleported in as a dragon and then became various furry animals. He then became a spider and chased me and my granddaughter around the island and even found us when we “hid” in my house. My granddaughter loved the experience and fully engaged with the dragon.

The space we were in “Cedar Island” is a place where we’d be unlikely to encounter bad stuff so it was a safe environment. I got to thinking that a teacher could take his/her class to such a place and arrange that another colleague or some other person appears to speak to the children (the new voice/audio would be useful tool here)