Joe Essid directs the Writing Center at the University of Richmond, where he teaches courses in writing and literature. He is a Richmond native who attended the University of Virginia and earned a Master's and PhD at Indiana University. His research interests include technology in the classroom and Southern literary humor. His academic writing has appeared in Computers and Humanities, The Writing Lab Newsletter, and anthologies about technology and writing. He is a contributor to Style Weekly and has appeared in Eighty One and RVA. Ignatius Onomatopoeia is the "avatar" who represents Joe in the game-world Second Life. Ignatius will be wandering the virtual terrain of Second Life while his creator writes here about what may be either "the next big thing" for the Internet or the latest darling of the cyber-hip... the reader can decide.
E-mail contact: jessid@mac.com | Web address: writing2.richmond.edu/jessid

Location: STILL at Real-Life Desk, Pondering Syllabus for Fall

I wish I were driving my virtual car…but I’m working and cannot be in-world today. Fall is breathing down my neck!

I did not realize, after answering a query by e-mail, that I’d become the poster-boy in a New World Notes story about educators, SL™, and Millennial students.

One point is clear to me: these students need consistent instructions.  That’s my qualm about using the otherwise strong Onrez client.

I’ve loved Onrez because, unlike the Linden Lab® product, it does not require constant updates.  That confused students both semesters I’ve taught with SL.  So why NOT use Onrez?

Instructions, instructions….every bit of advice at LL’s site and most third-party SL sites is written for the default Linden Lab client.  The Onrez client, while sleeker in many regards, lacks that sort of back-story. 

Or would college kids even care? How much time will they, on their own, spend “goofing around” with SL? I’ll be giving them more defined assignments now and prepare a “just in time” help wiki for them….yet as Intellagirl (a teacher who’s well known for her work with SL) responded in a comment to the NWN story, “Until I gave them a specific goal to accomplish they weren’t motivated to spend the time to play with the tools.“  She’s talking about the advanced building tools embedded in SL, but the point is broader.  My students are strapped for time and set a list of priorities.  They do not have the luxury, even in classes that motivate them, to just “play around.“

Back to the drawing board…any advice out there?

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