We've just finished the Language Learning sites tour out of Oxbridge and, I must say, this thing needs to either be trashed or totally reworked. It was one headache after another.
Before each tour, I go through all of the landmarks if it's an older tour and preferably talk to the people there to make sure it's okay to bring a group through--that we won't be interrupting anything. In the vast majority of the cases, if there is an event, those in charge will suggest another time to visit. But by and large, the owners of the tour spots seem to be appreciative for visitors and publicity. Today, I found that was not always the case.
I'd gone to all the locations and chatted with the people working at the locations prior to us visiting. That part is normal. What wasn't normal was when we visited our first location, ESL SL, I was confronted by a rather rude and angry private IM from a worker there. Boiled down, he said that they were a private school in SL and if we were not going to pay them for lessons, we should leave. This is
after another worker had given me the all clear for us to visit. Given our experience today, ESL SL is not a true group of educators and is only interested in money. Educators do not treat potential students the way we were treated today. I will avoid ESL SL in the future on any of my tours and I apologize to anyone who may have visited them because of one of my notecards and been rudely treated.
The second location, LanguageLab greeted us much better though I think we overwhelmed the worker there. The two who had been on duty during my initial "swingthrough" earlier in the day were not on duty by the time the group got there. Also, English City (part of LanguageLab) is undergoing changes. The person there told us that they've just revamped everything as of two weeks ago. Once it's all completed, I'm hoping to give Aviano Gears (my contact from before) a poke and see if maybe I can tour it, since right now, most of the sims appear to be locked down to non-group members. I just wish more were open to visitors, as the whole set-up is pretty ingenious--allowing students to rp in everyday situations in order to learn the English that would be used in those situations. (Actually, even though I know my tour group didn't feel like they got to see enough of the place, I'd like to interview some of the top folks from LanguageLab in the future. I think the lessons they've learned in teaching language in SL could be applicable to other subjects.)
Finally, we hit Paris 1900 which I hoped would rescue the rest of the tour. On a good SL day, Paris 1900 is a lot of fun--pretty builds to explore, high fashion shopping, fun streetcars, French speakers to converse with in text or voice, and an Eiffel Tower to plunge off of. On days like today, though, the rubber banding was fierce. Only three of us actually made it to the elevator to go up to the Tower. Everyone else gave up. I lost my last two "tourists" at the top of the Tower when I crashed for a 5th time in an hour. By the time I managed to log back in, they'd already taken the plunge, followed shortly by being hit on by a Bloodlines player (which is illegal on any of the Paris 1900 sims, but that doesn't mean that they stay away).
Basically, the tour overall was a bust. I'm proud of the two ladies who stuck through it to get to the end. (Shows that some Oxbridge women have true grit!)
The future of this particular tour notecard is in definite doubt. I don't care to
ever darken the doors of ESL SL again, nor will I send anyone their way. The way we were treated there was anything but professional--and if that's the way they think a "school" recruits new students, they really have a lot to learn about both education and marketing. The staff at LanguageLab is certainly professional--I just don't know that without an "official" tour given by one of the higher ups (which would take more than an hour on its own)--there's just not enough there to see at this point for one of these "overview" type tours. And Paris 1900? I usually love it. Today was just a bad day leading in and the lag on top of it there made things worse.
Perhaps I should've just called in "sick" for today's tour....
But next week, we're going to places I
know appreciate visitors! Yay!
