Why blog? This was the answer I used to give a year ago. I am reformulating a better one, at least a more honest one for this coming year. Or, at least I hope so.
Updated answer: Because SL is an ego trip!
No, but really...
As a researcher looking into the use of technology in education, I found SL to be a very interesting and engaging format, albeit one not free of complications, but one serendipitous and organic in nature. Deliberately or not, in Second Life (SL) I have come to enact those very same stances that define me in real life (RL): I am a learner in both.
I no longer approach SL strictly as a game, or even a simulation, but as an organic, shifting, and evolving forum where people learn to do things in cooperation. Where people, through communities of practice, become friends. Consequently, I find that the people behind the avatars enrich my life by sharing their experiences and knowledge much the same way friends do in other contexts. SL provides a public sphere where life, first or second, can be enacted in multiple ways, through multiple lenses, by all its residents.
So...herein I intend record my thoughts as they pertain to what I know in RL, as they evolve to include what I have come to know about SL.
I write to not forget.
