A few weeks a go, I went to a Mathematics workshop by Dr.Yeap Ban Har from Nanyang Technological University of Singapore. He is a hillarious person and always gives a fresh insights in teaching Mathematics to children so I didn't want to miss the chance to hear his lecture again.
I knew I would be stuck in a traffic jam on my way to downtown Jakarta so I went early at 7 AM. The workshop venue was just about 25 km from my home in a suburb outside Jakarta but it took me 2 hours to reach there by car.
The workshop lasted for two hours and I decided to go straight home after that. When I got out of the basement parking lot, the downpour showered my car right away. The road was flooded everywhere on my way. It took me almost 4 hours to drive home in a snail pace.
When I was driving in a huge and deep puddle of Jakarta, I thought 'I wish I could just teleport' like what I always do in Second Life. I often hear people in Indonesian education community skeptically say that distance workshop and learning in virtual world (VW) like 3D VW platform Second Life does not make sense. Does it make sense to spend 6 hours of drive and US$ 30 gas to attend just 2 hours workshop? (Have I mentioned that my car needed an overhaul because of the flood?) Does it make sense to waste so many resources and leave so many carbon footprints to get a new knowledge that we can get in other ways?
I always think that people who spend real money to buy virtual goods are insane. But these days I found myself spending some linden dollars (virtual money that I buy with real money) to shop. Please don't give me the look, I am not a freak. I can be almost anything in SL for FREE but sometimes I just want to be myself and look like myself (or prettier than myself lol) and that's not free at all.
1. I mostly buy educational tools .....okay okay and apparels to make my avatar look good (LOL).
3. I don't buy strange stuffs like virtual six packs or virtual baby.