My 3yr Old And Second Life
EC&I 831 is touring Second Life next Wednesday. I have only recently explored Second Life seriously, and I am looking forward to our tour. Tonight, my daughter came into the room where I was exploring SL. She took over the controls, and within 10 minutes, she pretty much mastered the basics. Take a look.
Now hopefully, technical issues aside, my Graduate students will be able to pick it up as quickly.
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That’s great, Raine. You are a very smart and clever girl! It took me a long time to learn how to do what you are already doing in Second Life.
Rick
WOW – 3 years old and navigating virtual worlds… great stuff!
Okay, after seeing her, there may be hope for me after all.
So Raine, whats your secret? I wish i were 3 years old
Kids just learn so much faster than adults. Is it because technology is part of their life and for us it is adjusting our life??
Good job Raine. One day you will be just as smart as your dad. Keep it up.
I had a similar experience with my 11 year old son. He wanted to know what I was doing an took over the controls at the NOAA exhibit and helped me learn to sit down. I’m going to have to make time for your class on Wednesday. I’m Kerry Foggarty over at SL. I’m saving my playtime over there for Easter and summer break, but I made it through the training and over to ISTE Island, so far.
Alec, I’m going on record right to say that I will not be as quick to learn as your daughter. That was amazing. I’m looking forward to exploring Second Life in class this week after getting that glimpse.
That was great, Alec. You know we are intimidated now though if we don’t pick up on it quickly. Raine is a beautiful, smart little girl!
Wow! It’s cool to see your daughter so comofortable with technology that some adults are scared of! What a smart girl!
Children have three advantages over us. One is they don’t have a lot of experience with “what can’t be done”. Secondly, their experience with failure is that they just try again. Look at a kid learning to walk. They fall down, they get up. They don’t think “Oh, no! I failed! I won’t try that again!” They just get up and try again.
Finally, kids are accustomed to an unfathomable rate of change. Imagine, one day you are an immoble blob and a few months later you can walk and communicate with other people. If you can deal with those rates of learning and change in your first life, SL isn’t much of a challenge.
The downside is that SL being such a free space, I don’t want my 6 yr old comfortable there. Even I feel like I need to be on guard. The predation possibilities there are huge and instantaneous. Have you found a safe/safer part of SL to experiment with?
@Greg, this is more proof of concept really. I would never let my young child roam freely in SL, especially not in the adult part of the Grid. I worry less about the issue of predators, and more about the content/actions/etc. that is widely abundant in the shadier parts of SL.
I took my girl on a journey here, I want to see if she could pick up the basics, and she did. Unsupervised access is a totally different issue.
There is a teen grid, but haven’t had a chance to explore.