A huge welcome to Team jokaydia to the truly fabulous Azzura Supplee – one of my oldest and dearest friends from Second Life!

Az will be joining me to assist with various projects and brings stellar building and scripting skills with her – WOOT! So far she’s been collaborating with me to bring our WIT Tourism build to life, and you can view some of her excellent work on the Western Institute sims.

Older jokaydia Residents might already know Az from her work on the Islands of jokaydia in Second Life back in 2008/09.. but if you havent met Az, feel free to drop into her home sim – Mirinesse @ jokaydiaGRID and say hello. She’s already created a great environment there with some handy resources!

You can also visit the Azztech Blog @ http://azztech.net/blog/ for more info on Azzura’s adventures in virtual worlds and also online gaming.

SO, WELCOME AZ! ;) It is awesome to have such a wonderful collaborator onboard to help us to grow jokaydiaGRID!

Today I had the pleasure of giving an online presentation in Elluminate for students from the New Learning and New Literacies Online Masters program at the University of Illinois. It was a jam-packed, super speedy session to give them a taste of some of the fabulous things happening in virtual worlds and games, and I hope they enjoyed it. I’ve published the slides from the session above.

To follow-up we’ll be meeting with the group in Second Life this Saturday morning (aus time). Check out the session description below for details, and feel free to join us!

New Learning and New Literacies Session 2: Second Life Field Trip

• Friday 14 May 7pm (US) & Saturday 15 May 10am (Aus). (Check your local time here.)
• Venue: The Islands of jokaydia in Second Life
• Meet at the Islands of jokaydia Landing Point to attend (SLurl)

Join us for a hands on workshop in Second Life with Jo Kay aka jokay Wollongong, an Australian designer and facilitator working across a range of virtual worlds to support education, arts and social change! The main elements of this session will be:

• Second Life Basics: Moving, communicating, searching and teleporting
• Dressing Up Your Avatar: Using the avatar tools to create your virtual you
• Exploring the Islands of jokaydia – the home of the jokaydia Community of Practice
• Virtual Touring – including visits to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Headquarters, Foul Whisperings, Strange Matters: Shakespeare’s Macbeth in Second Life, ISTE’s Headquarters and StoryBook Island.

During the session you will develop skills in using Second Life, meet some educators who are currently working in virtual worlds, and develop a better understanding of how educators and institutions around the world are currently using Second Life and other virtual worlds for teaching and learning.

How to Attend the Second Life Workshop

1. Click on the SLurl link above to open a map of Second Life and a teleport Link.
2. Follow instructions on the page to login to the right location for our workshop – the jokaydia Landing Point. If you get lost you can IM jokay Wollongong inworld for a lift to the venue!

Additional Virtual Worlds Events and Opportunities

There are also a range of other sessions that we can attend. Go to the events calendar.

Further notes, recordings and resources from the session are available in the event discussion forum @ http://www.flexiblelearning.net.au/content/exploring-metaverse-virtual-worlds-and-games-learning.

For those interested in Quest Atlantis:

• For information about upcoming teacher training in Quest Atlantis visit: http://atlantis.crlt.indiana.edu/site/pd_list
• For a course code or further information contact Dr Bronwyn Stuckey – email: bestucke@indiana.edu, twitter & skype: Bronst, Facebook:Bronwyn Stuckey

Special thanks to Jane McGonigal for her inspirational session at TEDTalks which inspired some of ideas for this presentation!

As well as all the other fun jokaydia-ness planned for this week, I wanted to let everyone know about a session I’ll be giving as part of the Australian Flexible Learning Framework’s e-Gems series. You can find out more about it here.

The sessions run in Elluminate which is a bit scary for a 3D girl like me (lolz).. but nevertheless it should be lotsa fun.

Session Description from the Framework forum:

Exploring the Metaverse: Virtual Worlds and Games for Learning, with Jo Kay aka jokay Wollongong, jokaydia.com

Virtual Worlds Virtual Worlds and Games are increasingly being used in education and training to create learning experiences which are immersive, authentic and media rich. Join jokay Wollongong and members of the Islands of jokaydia Community to explore some of ways educators from around the world are using spaces like Second Life, ReactionGrid, Quest Atlantis and World of Warcraft with their students.

This discussion topic will lead to a live chat with Jo Kay as part of e-Gems series of web-conferencing on:

• Date: Thursday 25 March 2010 at 12:30 – 1:30pm (AEST)
• Check your local time at: http://timeanddate.com/s/1nrn
• Location: http://tinyurl.com/egems-virtualworlds

Hope to see you there! ;)

Paisley’s guests: jokay Wollongong, owner and facilitator of education Islands of jokaydia, Katia Keres, singer, Mo Hax, co-founder EDTECH Retreat and developer, mentor, and blogger.

Yesterday we gave a session on the Islands of jokaydia as part of the Webheads in Action Online Convergence, a fantastic event which draws educators from all over the world together to share, reflect and collaborate on their work as online educators. There were some fantastic sessions – many of which you can catch up on via the WIAOC wiki. Congrats to Vance and all the Webheads for creating such a fabulous event!

Below is a summary of the session we presented, along with some notes on the thinking behind it. Im planning on developing these ideas further – perhaps into an SL Comic we can publish inworld and online.

Immersing in Virtual Worlds – jokaydia Style!

As those who have attended jokaydia events will know, we tend to try to be creative around how we structure events on jokaydia, often using a tour of the Island’s spaces as our presentation tool rather than slides and notecards.

For our WIAOC session I decided to employ the same technique, with a focus on illustrating the architecture of the jokaydia Community of Practice and some of the tools, environments and communication strategies we have used to support community building on the Islands. By that I mean not only the digital ‘bricks and mortar’ that we have built, but also some of the projects and strategies associated with the community that help to engage and support our members.

My aim was to illustrate how a range of elements come together to support learning and social networking on our Islands. They are:

• Community Entry Points: Inworld and web-based spaces that provide a pathway into our community for existing and new residents.
• Resident’s Locations and Participation: Our community members are our most important asset and bring their projects, ideas and willingness to share to the community.
• Demonstration Tools: Resources and spaces which demonstrate the potentials and can be used by both jokaydia facilitators and residents to share and explore strategies for teaching and learning in virtual worlds.
• Community Resources: 3D and web-based resources that provide visitors and community spaces with leads to projects, tools and teaching and learning resources; and most importantly to the broader SLeducation community.
• Community Learning Spaces: Space for practice sessions, experiments, sharing, just in time learning and project based learning – enabling mentoring and collaboration.
• Social Spaces: Social and informal spaces are an important part of making the Islands a welcoming and comfortable place. They encourage visitors to share, play and communicate with each others.

These elements form some of the key spaces and strategies that I have used to create a virtual place for the jokaydia Community of Practice, and also use to engage with and support our residents and visitors. Obviously the events and classes we run and the social and informal networking that happens on the Islands are also key factors in the community building process, but that’s for a later post/presentation! ;)

Tour Details

Each of the spaces I selected for the tour illustrate the elements detailed above and hopefully provided a good backdrop for the presentation. During the event we used a notecard with embedded links to move participants from location to location as well as landmark givers in each location as an addded navigation aid.

Tour Stop 1 – Community Entry Points: The  jokaydia Landing Point

To start the tour, we met at the jokaydia Landing Point (SLurl) to discuss Community Entry Points.

The Landing Point which is our ‘virtual front door’, but also the other tools we use to provide visitors and residents a pathway into our community and activities.

At the Landing Point, I have created a collection of tools which link to our 3D spaces, including our shared community resources and our resident’s spaces. Additionally the Landing Point houses links to jokaydia’s various web-based spaces which form an important part of our community’s presence online and provide a pathway into the community for those who can’t be inworld.

Tour Stop 2 – Resident’s Locations and Participation: Kangan Batman TAFE’s Job Seeking Skills Project

Obviously the residents of jokaydia are our most important asset – they create great tools and spaces and share their work in really generous ways; and of course their rent helps cover the costs for the Islands!

There are many fantastic resident’s spaces on jokaydia, but for this event I chose Kangan Batman TAFE’s Job Seeking Skills Project (SLurl) – which provides resources and information for students on career pathways and job seeking skills, including the ability to roleplay job interviews in immersive environments.

Tour Stop 3 – Demonstration Tools: Virtual Worlds Presentation Platform

The Virtual Worlds Presentation Platform (SLurl) is an immersive space designed to provide an environment for a  mixed reality presentation. This space was originally used for a presentation by Sean FitzGerald in 2007, but has since been used countless times as a demonstration tool to provide educators with an insight into how they can use Second Life to provide dynamic and interesting mixed reality or inworld presentations.

Tour Stop 4 – Community Resources: EduSquare

The Islands of jokaydia houses a wide range of community resources, including spaces to hold meetings and events, inworld tools and information in various spaces including the Newbie Garden and the PD Hut. However, the key community resource is EduSquare (SLurl), which is designed to provide a home for our resources and an informal meeting and networking space.

At Edusquare you can access landmarks to 30 Educational destinations inworld, check out some videos or meet with colleagues, connect to the jokaydia Community webpresence or experiment with simple information tools.

Tour Stop 5 – Community Learning Spaces: jokaydia’s SLoodle Hut

Spaces for experimentation and learning provide a space for residents to learn and collaborate together. Although jokaydia has a number of spaces designed to encourage this, for the WIAOC tour, we visited  the SLoodle Hut (SLurl).

A recent addition to the Islands, the SLoodle Hut seeks to provide a space for jokaydia residents to explore the use of SLoodle and Moodle in their projects. We have also provided a moodle space for experimentation at http://jokaydia.com/moodle which residents are using to develop and pilot web-based resources to support their inworld resources.

Tour Stop 6 – Social Spaces: jokaydia Beach

jokaydia has lots of social spaces, which have been both fun to create and use. The jokaydia Beach (SLurl) is a good example of the types of informal spaces we use. It has been setup with a range of toys and tools and can be used for parties, events or learning activities.

The informal activities that take place on the Islands are a key part of creating a sense of community and a welcoming environment for visitors. I try to update them regularly and include new things to explore.

Asynchronous Tour

If you’d like to take the tour and check out the spaces for yourself, I’ve left the WIAOC Event Resources on the Island. You can pick up the notecard for the first location at the jokaydia Landing Point (SLurl).

Simply use the WIAOC Signs (as pictured above) to grab  a notecard and Landmarks for each location.

Event Recording

Special Thanks!

marlonj – one our wonderful jokaydia residents came along to support the event, and managed to capture a great recording which you can view above. Thanks so much marlonj!!

Thanks also to slammed Aabye and Sapphire Ceawlin who came along to help me with the event!

It’s been a huge year for me both personally and professionally… but the highlight has definitely been getting to know everyone in the jokaydia Community of Practice and sharing our virtual worlds journeys together!

So thankyou! To everyone who has visited our islands, attended an event or taken part in our activities. And an even bigger thankyou to the residents of jokaydia who are just too fabulous for words!

Merry Xmas everyone! Seeya in 2009!

Well, I’ve finally made it to a very wet and miserable Mooloolabah for the Learning Technologies 2008 Conference which is hosted by LearnTel each year.

.The theme this year is ‘Learning Connections’… so I’ll be talking about virtual worlds and the connections they enable for education and arts. Obviously, considering the focus of jokaydia this year has been on building a community of practice, I’ve got plenty to say!! ;)

I’ve prepped a nice little 4 page handout which I’ll be distributing to the participants at my workshop today, but I thought I’d also make it availble here.

Click here to download ‘Connecting in Second Life’ (PDF format).

For further updates on what I’m up to in not so sunny Queensland, you can follow me on Twitter, where I’m sure I’ll have lots of random things to say… or check out the Learning Technologies Conference Ning for more information.

One of the things I love most about SL is that it allows me to bring a wide range of my creative skills together – design, IT skills, education and facilitation, marketing and performance skills.

Here I am reliving my theatrical days, playing with a lighting design on Koala Island. And I don’t even need any gaff tape! ;)

What do you like about SL most? What does it enable you to achieve?

posted by jokay Wollongong on Koala Island using a blogHUD : [blogHUD permalink]

As promised, here’s the details of the event I’m doing for ISTE in Second Life next week. Hopefully lots of our jokaydia Community Members will be able to attend! Check your local time here.

Education on the Islands of jokaydia in Second Life with jokay Wollongong

Tuesday, January 29, 6 PM SLT, ISTE Speaker Series Session

Jo Kay aka jokay Wollongong will share information about the various projects she is involved with in Second Life, including the Islands of jokaydia, where she is supporting a growing community of educators and artists in Second Life who are exploring various strategies for the use of virtual worlds in their practice. She will also talk about the incredibly comprehensive SLeducation Wiki which documents educational uses of Second Life and is recognized as one of the most valuable resources available for educators exploring virtual worlds.

The event will commence at 6pm SLT on 1/29 at the ISTE Beach/Campfire Ring area where Jo Kay will facilitate a brief introduction and a question and answer session. This will be followed by a field trip to the Islands of jokaydia where participants will have the opportunity to explore the Islands and also meet some of the jokaydia Community members who are working there.

For more information about ISTE events in Second Life visit their wiki.