A Dork in Second Life

TIES is getting a presence in Second Life. We have purchased a plot of land through ISTE on ISTE Island 2. Here I am hovering over it.

That's me, TC Kungfu, you can see the meditation treehouse on the left and behind the tree on the right is a bench swing that, for some reason, puts two people on top of each other when they both try to sit there. Kinda inappropriate, especially for an educational venue but those aren't actually on our property, just next to it.

So Dork, you might ask, what are you going to do with the space. Awesome stuff only, I say. We expect awesome meeting places, presentations, demonstrations, musical performances, dazzling technological displays, light shows, fireworks, hookers, fire trucks ... well maybe not all that. We'll probably keep it educationally oriented.

We expect to begin construction sometime in the near future. Til then, enjoy watching my awesome Kung Fu skills. Did I overuse the awesome word "awesome"?

Aren't we grown-ups?

Today I was helping set up classrooms for some contract teachers we are using while some of my colleagues are not available. In our 3 month-old iMac lab there was a mouse missing.

Seriously? Someone stole a @#$%^& mouse!?

I taught middle school for five years, high school for two, and I knew that when we went to the computer lab you need to make sure that all the mouse balls (before IR mice) were in the mice before leaving. When using the portable laptop lab, twice (at two different schools) students tried to steal a laptop - luckily I found them both times. The general assumption in the classroom was that, to quote the CC's previous neighbor, "if it ain't tied down, them @#$%^&s will take it." This was in reference to any items left on their porch.

After today, insert grown-up educational professionals in the aforementioned "them @#$%^&s" part of that quote.

Do we really need to remind adults not to steal things when they go to another place of business? I am grasping for a handle on my emotional state. I shouldn't need to count equipment when I'm done teaching. I shouldn't need to keep that extra lookout for people trying to take things from our labs. I realize I'm back teaching middle school. Let's please grow up a bit.

images:
Watterson, Bill. The Indispensable Calvin and Hobbes. Andrews. 1992.