Daily Archive for August 10th, 2008
Look, see,
watch, peep,
peer, stare,
glance, gaze,
behold…
When students first come to Languagelab, I realised that poor camera control was an obstacle for learning effectively.
It is important to be able to read information and look at objects provided by the teacher. You need to look at signs, vocabulary
items or pictures and be able to change quickly so you are looking again at the people in the class or someone you are talking to.
This really helps you be present in the class. And because it is Second Life it also means that you can look round corners, up in
the sky and even through walls! How do we do this? |
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How to look around
- If you hold down the ‘ALT’ key at right of your keyboard you’ll see that your mouse arrow becomes a cross.
Now you can focus on different objects by clicking on them and holding down the ‘ALT’ key. You can zoom in or out
with the mouse wheel. This is great for reading anything in class, even writing that is very small.
- For even more control, hold down ‘CTRL’ and ‘ALT’ as well as your left mouse button. This will lock onto an object. As you move your mouse around, you can see it from any angle,
- Just move your avatar with the arrow keys to get back to a normal view.
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Advanced Users: Try ‘unlocking’ the camera so you can look as far as you want. Normally you can only look at objects that are quite
near to your avatar. With this tool you can look further than the eye can see.
- Click in the ‘advanced’ menu at the top of your screen and then click ‘Disable Camera Constraints’. Using the ALT and CTRL buttons while holding your left mouse key should let you zoom in on objects far away.
Now you can … Zoom in .. Zoom out .. Zoom in .. Zoom out.
Next week, I will be looking at how to use sound for learning English. Talk to you then. |
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