I give up on Second Life. I was able to create an account, then I couldn't figure out how to get in and create an avatar. I tried once before. That time I was able to make an avatar, but couldn't figure out how to move around. I also looked at some of the links to ways libraries and schools use second life. I couldn't get into any of them. Grrrr!
To ease my frustration, I looked at a few avatar-using sites for teens and kids that I found listed in a magazine article. I like a couple of these, and I can see how it might be useful to include them on our library site for kids. They are: Whyville.com and Nicktropolis.com. Whyville.com is mostly a free site (although there is a way you can buy "clams" (the whyville currency) for cash. Mostly kids can earn clams without money though, by doing and learning things in Whyville. The site has a nice preteen look, and I like the fact that a user has to pass a long quiz about chat and site safety before they are allowed to start to chat.
Nicktropolis.com is a site from Nickelodeon, allowing kids to create avatars and interact with Nick TV characters. They claim that the site is very safe because they don't ask for any personal information. I didn't explore this as thoroughly as Whyville, but it seems to be worth a closer look; I know we have a lot of kids who come into the library to use the Nickelodeon website.
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1 comment:
yeah... i gave up on second life too. too much. i couldn't figure out how to get off the island, change my anatomically correct body, get some clothes on. all of it.
sorry to hear about the links... i will double check those, but thanks for sharing some other sites!!
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