0522 Second Life

This is the fourth time I play Second Life, and I get familiar with it gradually. However, it also means that it's time to decorate the scene of our final project! But, because this is our last time to play Second Life together in class, we decide to take a picture with everyone.

(1) With everyone.

(2) With Headplaner.

Today's main mission is to build everything we need in our project. Because the background of our final project is in the ancient Chinese court, we have to buy an ancient Chinese house and decorate it.

The concept of the ancient court.

Everyone has their own duty in decorating the scene. Vicky and Daven is in charged in finding the ancient house. They find two interesting house.

(3) This is the first house they find, but they think it's not proper for building an ancient court, thus, we don't use it.

(4) This is the interior scene of the house we finally choose.

We finally choose the second house as the picture (4) and (5). Therefore, we start to decorate it. I am in charge of building the background of the court (as the sun rise from the sea in the above picture). Teacher asks me to come up with a picture that is related to our script, but I haven't come up with yet. Therefore, I build a oblong board first.

(5) The board and me.

In the end of the class, we are still decorating it, I am looking forward to the outcome of our decoration. I think it will be funny. Otherwise, I have to come up with the concept of court's background quickly. It's so hard to me!

Useful Website in Learning Languages: Lang-8

This is an useful website which is called Lang-8 in learning different languages. I use it to learn Japanese, but it is also for learning English and other languages.

This is the beginning scene of the website:

You can sign up with twitter, facebook, or create a new account.

And, in filling your own information, you have to offer your native language which can make others know which language you can help them. Otherwise, you also have to offer which language you want to learn. You can select two kinds or more at the same time.

Then, it will help you how to use the website. On Lang-8, you can make friends with foreigners, and also correct other people's diaries.

 Because I select Chinese as my native language, in the main page, it will show me the diaries which the writers want to learn Chinese. So, I can help them in correcting their Chinese.

Of course, I can write diaries on my own. Generally, because I select English as the language that I want to learn, the first blank which is "the language which you want to be corrected" will be selected as English automatically. And then, you can type whatever you want.

 After you post an article, someone, generally native speakers, will correct your article. They can press "修改(correction)" to correct your sentences. If your sentences don't have any problems, they can also press "perfect".

If you press "修改(correctiom)", it will show the tools you can use in correcting. Otherwise, you can also add extra things in "備註欄 (note)".

 This is the scene that I use the website to learn Japanese. This shows the scene that someone corrects my article. You can also chat with others.


Lang-8 is really useful in learning languages. It allows native speakers to correct your articles, so the correctness of your articles will be more reliable. If you want to learn foreign languages, I sincerely recommend you to use the website. In Lang-8, you can not only learn foreign languages but also make friends with foreigners.

This is the URL of Lang-8: http://lang-8.com/

Interaction and Conversation

About Writing

0501 Second Life

This time, teacher wanted us to try voice chat and build something in Second Life.

At first, I didn't know how to build objects or cast objects to the grounds, and threw a lot of trees and grass onto the ground. But, later I could even change the shape of the object. I made a big cube first. Then, I pulled it up and down, forth and back to change its position. Next, I use the function "stretch" to change its shape. I made a cube become a thin board. Teacher then ask us to add photos and texts onto it. I changed its texture to add photo onto the board.

I first randomly picked a photo in the computer to try the function.  This is the picture of lighthouse.

Then I encountered a trouble, which is the size of the picture was too big, so that whenever I uploaded the photo, the game would jump out to the scene of login by itself. So, I tried and tried, and finally changed the texture of the board successfully.

I used a photo which is taken by my classmates, Head Planer, and used Power Point to add texts on the photo. I typed "Don't cross the line!" not only because teacher told us that our neighbor prohibits us to cross the line to his land but also recently, there are too many social protests in Taiwan, and the polices always use "roadlocks" to circle out the scope of activities. 

The next requirement was that we needed to use Audacity to record the our verbal conversations which we utilized the function "voice chat" with others. Thus, I chatted with Head Planer. We discussed about why she made a anti-nuclear sign and also chatted with each other mostly in Chinese.

And, here is the audio, and the picture in it was took during our conversations:

I had funny and interesting experiences. From now on, I can "talk" to the other foreigners in Second Life!!