Almost there...

Finally managed to get assignment number two lodged today. I had a huge meltdown on Monday when pressing CTRL S to save my near completed assigment it just disappeared. It wasn't locked or anything else and MS Word didn't recover the doc when i shut it down and opened it again - it was just completely gone. There was a temporay file there but i could not open it.

I tried everything suggested on the MS website, had a technician do a house call to attemp recovery (cheap in Cambodia but not sure how good they are!) and even called MS support in Australia but to no avail. In the end my husband managed to get the details of another technician who could come out on Tuesday morning so i decided to do what my IT support at work always did with out network computers - log off and log back on again. We always laughed as this was the first thing they asked you when you rang the helpdesk!! No one here had mentioned it though. I was too scared to log off initially as i thought while i could still see the temp file that it was there somewhere and i thought i would lose it once i logged off. In the end there wasn't anything else to do so i hesitantly selected restart and crossed my fingers!

You can image my HUGE suprise when I clicked on the temp file again and it opened. I had lost about 5 minutes work and the pictures I had included - in the scheme of things absolutely nothing!! I was SOOOOOOO happy - I had wasted a whole day almost on this and was now behind where i wanted to be in order to meet the assessment requirements for both subjects that i am doing but at least I did not have to do the assignment all over again!!

I can't believe that I have almost finised these two subjects :)

Not much to add

Very little to add this week. Last week I updated my page with some more information and asked some additional questions. I have had no responses to those questions however a couple of people have left comments regarding Second Life.

I will be spending the rest of this week finalising assignment 1 and researching for assignment 2 as well as completing assessment for my other subject.

KG page updated finally

It has been a little while since I last posted a blog entry. I have been really busy with assessment for my other subject. I did manage to check my page against the assessment criteria provided by Peter. I added a few things and worked a bit more on the format.

I finally got around to adding further information and additional questions to my facilitated page on Second Life in KG. I then posted a message with a link to the page in the shoutbox to try to get some more contributions.

I spent some time looking at the page and experimenting with some options for format as it is pretty long now. In the end I couldn't decide how to restructure the page - I had a look at a few others and although I didn't get any great ideas I was pretty impressed with the amount of input i have received to my page. One of the options I looked at was using hidden comments but I don't like how they are placed on the page so i decided to leave it as it is.

Just discovered that another student had left a comment in my blog - interesting - I haven't read anyone else's blog and didn't realise others were reading mine!

Status change...

Just before heading off on a Christmas break I received feedback from the other work colleague that i had been waiting on. I added her comments to the page along with those of my other colleague and updated the status of the page to return it to 'facilitated - in need of input' to allow course particiants to once again add comments.

I feel that the page itself is now getting too long and i intend to spend this week working out how to redesign it and then adding some new questions/information for comment.

I also need to look at the assessment criteria again and gain a further understanding of the requirements for the facilitated page in assignment 1 in relation to the requirements for assignment 2.

At the same time i have assessment requirements for my other subject, decisions to make about what to choose as my last subject and my in-laws arriving on the 20th of this month!!

External input

So after a few days of having the page listed as public i realised that by leaving the page at this status meant that those in the course could not contribute to it!

I feel that it is worth it though as i really wanted to get contributions to the page from people at work. I received contributions from one person really quickly however the second person has still not replied to the email i sent. It has been just under a week so i will leave it for another couple of days before changing the status back and updating the page.

I am really happy with the comments that I have received so far and the further info received from my work colleague specific to our situation is also really valuable!

I am not alone....

There have been quite a number of people contributing to my facilitated page which is great. I discovered something called a category that i set to 'facilitated and in need of input' and i also added my page to the list on the FET 8611 table of contents so i think this may have really helped.

I have received comments from a number of people who also experienced problems with the slow and jerky nature of Second Life and this has put me off heading back into the world a little bit. I will give it another go though.

I also finally received some information on inviting guests into KG to get some external contribution to my page. It sounds like it was supposed to be easy to find the information but i read the section on guests and there was no link to anything else. Anyway, it all sounds like its a lot of effort for all involved and not a popular thing to do so i have played with the category of may page again and made it public so all can see it. I plan to invite a couple of people from work to have a look and provide some further comments for me - with their permission i will add their comments to the page.

My Second Life!

So today I thought i would take the time to actually create an avatar in Second Life and see what it is all about.

Other people had told me that the process for establishing your was complicated and time consuming and i would have to agree. The other time consuming part was downloading the software that is required to run Second Life. I use broadband internet but this is Cambodia so it is only just a little quicker than dial-up back in Australia!!

I have done a small amount of 'gaming' but i still found myself walking into walls etc. The keys used to navigate just didn't seem responsive enough for the way i was walking and flying!!

You start your life on Orientation Island before 'graduating' to the Second Life world itself - this step took ages. The length of this set up process (a couple of hours) would need to be considered when using Second Life for educational purposes.

It was just as i had finished all the tasks on Orientation Island that i received an error from my computer stating that the 'Windows virtual memory was low' and that Windows needed to increase the size of my virtual memory. It was also at this point where the whole Second Life window partially froze - i could look around but not move anywhere or click on anything. I gave it a little break in the hope that 'Windows' would fix it but ended off logging off after about 20 minutes.

Will try again tomorrow!!