Your professor never dreamed that he'd be teaching anyone how to walk. Well, here goes.

Walking

This is my easiest lesson yet!  I like to use the arrow keys on my keyboard to move about. If you like being fancy about matters, you may also use the "view" menu, show the movement control, and click on that. The controls that appear are shown on the right. They can be useful when driving, a lesson you'll learn later.  Best to learn to walk before you drive!

Running

Just like walking but faster. You can enable this with a key combo or by selecting "Always Run" from the World menu. Turn it off the same way.  For some reason, running avatars irritate me. I want to trip them up.  It's bad form to bump other avatars, so be careful with the running until you are good at moving about.

Flying

Is this one of the oldest dreams of humans?  In SL, unless a region bans flying, just use the Pgup button to leap into the air. Tapping the button makes the avatar do a short jump, but holding it down enables flight.

When flying, the arrow keys control forward and side movement; the Pgdown button lowers the avatar's alitude.

Warning: You will see buildings in the sky in many areas. It is very bad form, and can led to an abuse report, to just "drop in" and visit a stranger's house.  Send them an IM first, if you see them. Many SL residents are more than happy to show a newcomer around. Some, however, get very angry at random visitors.

You may encounter "ban lines" in the air and be told that you cannot enter an area. This is not because you did something wrong.  Land-owners can set permissions for only those on a list to enter.

Falling kills no one in SL, but it's not polite to fall out of the sky onto someone else.  Still, go up in the air above an empty spot, then click the "Stop Flying" button at the bottom of the screen, in order to plummet to earth like a cartoon character.

Scavenger Hunt Reward: 50L to the first person to post to our Koinup group a snapshot of themselves flying above Richmond Island. E-mail me when you have it posted.

Teleporting

The fastest way to travel.  While it is possible to fly between regions or use a vehicle, pont-to-point instant transportation is a powerul feature of SL.  You can teleport in several ways:

• By using a landmark
• By "going home" with your map's home button
• By accepting a teleport offer from another avatar (warning--think before you do that).