By Alice’s Sister AKA Sarah

Technology is an integral part of today’s world. Through my involvement with Teen Second Life, I have learned that creativity is an important part of the learning process, advanced technologically, and learned to cope with technical difficulties
Through Second Life, I have learned that creativity is a big part of the learning process. If I had just been reading out of a textbook, I probably wouldn’t have understood how 3-D virtual animation works. Doing it first-hand gave me a better way to learn about 3-D animation. I also learned how to incorporate academics into this technology. Some people would play Second Life just for fun, but recreating the story Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in Second Life helped me learn about the story and computer animation at the same time.
I also advanced technologically. I learned new vocabulary like prims (money) and avatars (characters). We created by building and used scripts to make the objects move. Using computer grid systems was essential to make the set of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, which requires exact locations and perfect height placement.
Even though most wouldn’t consider what I am going to say “valuable” in education, I also learned how to cope with slow computers, faulty systems, and technological difficulties. After two years, most of the computers are very slow. I learned patience and how to work through exasperation and anger caused by computers.  
Second Life had to be one of the most enjoyable and educational things I’ve ever done in school. It was fun because it wasn’t the same old boring textbook, and educational because now I have a little more basic knowledge on how to build and script things and how to deal with slow and faulty computers. I really believe that Second Life would be a great thing to have in school! Like I said, technology is an integral part of today’s world. And I think that schools should do the best they can to keep us connected to that technology. Better than staring at black and white letters on a four pound book for seven hours a day by far!
By Sarah Morgan