1. Designing tools in Second Life. Important things that shouldbe taken into account whenyou design toolsto be used in Second Life

• Akemi Mochizuki Draceina Pinion (S.L)

2. Index

Introduction 1. A space for rezzing objects 2. Number of prims you are going to use 3. Having Linden$ 4. To be in touch with other avatars 5. The constant evolution in the development of the tools in Second Life. Conclusions

3. Introduction

These slides want to give you a perspective about how to design tools in Second Life. I will explain what are the things to consider if you want to design tools in Second Life and how educational tools or other kinds of tools can be easily created in Second Life.

4. If you want to design tools in Second Life, you need a space where you can rez objects (put the objects over the land).I rent a secret laboratory of 468 prims in the mainland. And I own a small land with a capacity of 117 prims because I have a premium account that costs USD 72.00 each year. 1. A space for rezzing objects . 5. 1. A space for rezzing objects . My laboratory is so crowded with objects... These are ideas waiting to be developed into useful tools. 6. 1. A space for rezzing objects . This is the land I own. 117 prims are not enough for designing tools but I can have a small shop here. 7. 1. A space for rezzing objects. There are some public sandbox that you can use if you don't have land . One of them is FRANCE3D Saint Denis http://slurl.com/secondlife/FRANCE3D%20Saint%20Denis/159/140/22 8. 2. Number of prims you are going to use For example, to rez the Category tool I have designed I need to have 50 prims available.Furthermore, if it becomes necessary to fix or advance it, l need more prims for copying and saving it during the process of checking and testing it. 9. 2. Number of prims you are going to use You can know the number of the prims that you can use clicking on the name of the land where you are. A window will appear and in the objects tab you will see the number of prims which are available. In this case I can use 19 more prims here. 10.

3. Having Linden$

You will need L$ to upload images in Second Life. Uploading images is necessary to make easy-to-use user interfaces and sometimes good shapes. To upload one image into S.L, you must pay 10 L$. As for me, I have never bought L$. The first days in SL, I paid the land by using yen once. After that I earned L$ necessary to live in Second Life by selling my works. 11. 4. To be in touchwith other avatars When you design tools it is very important to be in touch with other avatars.Thanks to the social networking tools of SL you will see that it is easy to receive help, comments and feedback that will help you develop your tools very quickly, remain up-to-date with new scripts and exchange knowledge.But of course the best point is that we can enjoy living here in Second Life, if we have some good friends. 12. 4. To be in touchwith other avatars

These are the namesof my good friendsand the groups.

13. 5. The constant evolution in the development of the tools in Second Life .

The tools I develop(some of them are shown in other presentations in this Congress) progress every week.

Now with the DDB board tool you can use any graphic symbols. I call these graphic symbols stamps.You can use ready-made sets of stamps or you can create your own stamps by uploading a .jpg file as a texture and paste its UUID into a notecard.

14. UUID (Universal Unique IDentifier) are 128-bit numbers assigned to any asset in SecondLife 15. You can move and modify the stamps on the board. 16. You can use stamps as notes and to write scores. 17. You can edit RGB values to change the colors and add them to the color palette. 18. 5. The constant evolution in the development of the tools in Second Life . 19. 5. The constant evolution in the development of the tools in Second Life .

Memorize & Categorize has progressed much, too. The dialogs have changed into buttons and it has become easier to modify settingsThe user needs to touch just one button.

20. 5. The constant evolution in the development of the tools in Second Life.

It has also become easier to add text in Memorize & Categorize

21. 5. The constant evolution in the development of the tools in Second Life.

I designedInflexionafter customizingMemorize & Categorizeto study Spanish. It's made by a box and two spheres which display questions. The sphere in the center shows a pronoun in Spanish (subject). The sphere on the right shows a verb in English. The user has to answer by writing the properly conjugated Spanish verb in local chat. The tool will tell if the answer is right or wrong. At the moment it is limited to the present tense.

22. 5. The constant evolution in the development of the tools in Second Life.

Inflexion was made in about 4 hours. I had limited knowledge of Spanish, which I started to learn only two weeks ago. The functionality of Inflexion is limited at the moment but it can be expanded to other verb tenses.The most important improvement so far is the increase of amount of questions this tool can process. In Inflexion, the number of questions is almost the same as the number of subjects multiplied by the number of verbs.

23. Conclusions In SL it is possible to design tools for a specific need, for example to learn how to conjugate verbs in the present tense.Later, the tool can be modified to help studying the past tense. The user can easily customize the tool by opening and editing the notecard in the content tab of the tool. Making and testing tools is so easy, fast and inexpensive that they can be made for individual needs. 24. If you are interested in these educational tools, please contact Draceina Pinion in Second Life. I will give you a document with instructions for using the tools and I will support you if you have any doubtin using them. Special Thanks Gloria Gmez-Diago