I had my first group meeting in Jokaydia yesterday and it was another brick in the wall of my understanding of the environment. I've been in Jokaydia three times in this course so far:
Alone - lots of wandering around. I accidentally flew and wasn't sure how I did it. A couple of other avatars showed up with what looked like similar names. At first I was
completely freaked out. After checking in with our mission leader about the experience, we came up with a pretty good guess that it was students from another island in the world, and was less freaky than it seemed at first. I also realized that my inexperience with the tools in this world meant that I didn't figure out how to access my communication tools. As it was happening, I was really intimidated and thought about how I would feel if I was in another country (alone) and had people walk up to me trying to talk with me in a language I didn't understand.
A Guided Tour - I met with our course leader in world, and I was able to become more familiar with the tools. It was very helpful to have someone who could provide some background on how the world actually worked, which made me feel a lot more comfortable.
In a Group - I seemed to forget many of the things I had learned in my two earlier visits, which was a bit frustrating. But being in a group made dealing with it easier and a lot funnier. As I walked around with one arm in the air, I felt like an overeager student who constantly things she has the right answer (think Hermione Granger in
Harry Potter).
All in all, I am enjoying the experience (as you can see from my relaxed posed below). If I can make the time to visit every couple of days, I think that will help cement my understanding (please note the repeat of the brick/wall metaphor).
