Thumann Resources

Well I had registered for Shutdown Day on May 3. (The link for http://shutdownday.org seems to be broken now)  I successfully stayed off my computer, e-mail, Twitter, all my online networks for 24 hours. I enjoyed the time with family, friends and the outdoors so much I decided to extend the day a little longer and did not connect again until Sunday evening when I needed to complete a project for class and finish researching something for work.

I could do this again. I’m sure I missed something important, but knowing the wonderful people I’ve met in my network - they’ll fill me in.

Can you survive 24 hours without your computer? Unless there’s a beach vacation involved, it’s a stretch for me, but tomorrow - I’m going to do it!

An experiment is going on to see just how many people can go without using their computers tomorrow, Saturday, May 3, 2008. To be part of the experiment, just register online, consider advertising Shut Down Day on your blog or website, and maybe even create a short video of what you did with all the extra time you had with family and friends while you weren’t on your computer using all that electricity. There’s a contest you can enter to win some great prizes.

What will you do with your time?

Since beginning my second life on Second Life back in March, I have had such great experiences and have met such wonderful, welcoming people through SL, Twitter and the DEN.

I’ve been fortunate enough to have been given a house in Chilbo by Fleep Tuque. I love my little house and I’ve met my neighbors and follow them on Twitter as well.

I’ve attended professional development and social events at the DEN and through ISTE during which I met in SL many of the great educators I’ve met in real life or on Twitter.

Having said all of this, I’ve met many new people in Second Life that were strangers at one time or another, but I met them in an environment that was appropriate. It wasn’t like I struck up a conversation with someone in a freebie store or when I was a complete ”Newbie” and walking through the Ben & Jerry’s Orientation island.  I had some unspoken rules in mind similar to what I teach teachers, students and my own children to use as guidelines. (These are a bit different since they were for me. Had I been working with kids I would never have let them include their personal information in their SL profiles.)

1. Only IM (instant message) with people that I know
2. Have a Landmarks (similar to Favorites) folder of familiar, appropriate, recommended places to visit
3. If I feel uncomfortable about something, log out and let someone know about it immediately.

In general, I follow my rules. But a couple of days ago, I returned to my house on Chilbo after having a very nice conversation with a fellow Rutgers staffer on RUCE. I always return to my house before logging off. It’s one of the great benefits of having real estate on SL. I walked away from my computer for just a minute and when I returned - there was an unfamiliar avatar sitting on my couch!

BB:hi
Me: Who are you?
BB: hi
Me: Hi - What are you doing in my house?
BB: im youre new boyfriend :-p
Me: Not really. Are you a chilbo resident?
BB: no passing by
Me: Nice meeting you - bye bye now.
BB: youre leaving ?
Me: You are.
BB: ill think about it
Me: Interesting - this has never happened before.
Me: You must be really bored.
BB: nope just checking this game out
Me: Oh - well I don’t use it for a game.
Me: I use it for work
BB: what kind of work?
Me: Not telling - but you need to leave - you are on private property.
BB: dont worry im not going to eat you
Me: ha ha
BB: this is just pixels remember
BB: ?
Me: Yes, but you are distracting,
BB: verry well then m gone

We can all pick a part how I handled the situation. I was caught a little off guard. My first instinct was to follow Rule #3 and log out, but he was in my house and I was concerned that he would possibly do something to my house or would still be there when I logged back on.

I did send a Tweet out to my PLN and got several immediate suggestions on what to do. (Thank you so much for the quick responses.) I also met with Fleep the next day and she banned BB from my house so that he could never return.

What’s the protocol for Stranger Danger as an adult in Second Life? I talk to strangers all the time in my first life and my four-year-old frequently scolds me as she doesn’t understand boundaries and social graces yet. How do we teach our students and children to be polite, generate new friendships and exchange information with people that can potentially be their friends or of some interest to them in real life or in virtual worlds and maintain boundaries?

I welcome your suggestions. I don’t welcome strangers on my couch. I’m Emanna Romano in Second Life should you want to discuss this in World, we can arrange a public place to meet.

PodCampNYC was a fantastic experience at Brooklyn Polytechnic yesterday. Not only did David Gordon and I get to talk about the project we’ve been working so hard on for so many months, but so many attendees shared our enthusiasm.

Brian Brewer from http://www.cancerresearch.org/ had some great suggestions for us and offered to link our vcasts to his organization’s site once they were formally published. Christine Cavalier aka PurpleCar had a great idea for us to include a teenager in the vcasts. David immediately thought of a candidate for the job and I could see the networks in his brain working to make it all happen as soon as we got back to Jersey. And we also met Philip Campbell from the UK who sat in on part of our presentation. Phil runs http://me.dm/ and graciously offered to help us with circulation and had some awesome ideas on getting additional funding.  

David, Judy and I also had the chance to sit in on the Teachers Teaching Teachers with Paul Allison and Susan Ettenheim and we  lunched with Second Life gurus AJ Kelton and Peggy Sheehy.  

Finally, as the day came to a close, we met some of the PodCamp coordinators. They did such a fantastic job. We even had free coffee from Starbucks – in NYC of all places!

I only wish I had met Philip from http://oovoo.com. Philip – I looked for you everywhere.

Check out my Flickr stream from the day.

Tomorrow David Gordon and I present at PodcampNYC. We will be presenting about a project we have been working on for months now.

We’re still not really ready. We had been hoping to have edited more video and published all the video podcasts to Rutgers iTunes U and secured more funding, but best laid plans…

I spent some time today finalizing our presentation and realized it will be very difficult to summarize in an hour (from 1-2pm) what has taken us many months to put together. But I am very excited to share what our vision has been to help children, parents, classmates and teachers of children re-entering school after having been treated for cancer.

David and I (and everyone else involved with this project) are hoping that after today we’ll be able to forge ahead.