I’ve been making some resources today, and thus was going through the amazing collection of images on the jokaydia Flickr Group. Wow we have done some crazy, fun, educational, networked, social and awesome stuff this year! I think for me the highlight was the Unconference, which showcased just how far we have all come as a community.

So I decided to make this Animoto as a quick way to record our exploits this year.. and provide us all with a handy resource which perhaps gives people a bit of insight into what we get up to! I hope you enjoy it!

Special thanks to all the contributors in our Flickr group – you are contributing to an important visual record of our work inworld!

Oh and did I say GO VOTE FOR US!? hehe!

On Friday I had an opportunity to participate in a number of virtual sessions of the Australasian Virtual Worlds Workshop held in Second Life. The sessions took place on the Islands of jokaydia and the beautiful Second Life campus of Swinburne University on Koala Island.

I managed to take lots of pictures and even some video. Unfortunately, I was not able to capture the audio. Below you will find two machinima pieces from the event and also a flickr stream of all the pictures from the jokaydian Fotopool.

Keynote address by Chris Collins, Director of Enterprise Business Systems of Linden Lab
(no audio):

(Link to the original file on blip.tv)

Some shots of the panel sessions after Chris’ keynote:

(Link to the original file on blip.tv)

… and here are all the tagged pictures from the event:

I finally found some time to write a blog post on my virtual Kenyan classroom. I also finished the video, which you can watch below.

Once again, big thanks to Jo for supporting the project and finding a spot for me to present at the jokaydia Unconference back in September.

You can find the post on my blog of proximal development. The SLurl is here.

Virtual Kenya Project Machinima
(Link to the original file on blip.tv)

If you like what you see and would like to bring your students or colleagues into this space, or learn more about education in Kenya or the work of Teachers Without Borders – Canada, please feel free to contact me. I’ve given a number of tours already and would be happy to chat about the space or help you build a lesson around this virtual exhibit.

As some of you may know, I have been away since July 1 traveling with Teachers Without Borders – Canada. One of the last videos that I filmed before my trip was of the new sim of what was then known as jokaydia III. Back then, this new area of the jokaydian Estate was fairly empty and I made the video to document the addition of the new sim. I had no idea that in only three months the landscape would change so much as to be almost unrecognizable!

When I logged on a couple of days ago – for the first time since July 1st – and saw how much the area had changed, I knew that I just had to document this fantastic growth of our community.

I finished editing the new video just a few minutes ago and I hope that you will take some time to watch both the first video (jokaydia THEN) and the new one (jokaydia NOW) to see how much jokaydia has grown in just over three months. Enjoy!

jokaydia THEN (June 4th, 2008):

jokaydia NOW (September 10th, 2008):

Yet more machinima brilliance from Konrad! This small machinima uses the SL environment tools to capture how beautiful the windlight viewer can be. I think the timelapse effect of this is really cool.

Thanks again, Konrad! Really great stuff! ;)

jokaydia resident Konrad March is back to Second Life with a vengence after a couple of hectic weeks in real life, and to mark his return has posted this fab little fly-over of jokaydia III!

Thanks Konrad!

Jo has already written about the hugely successful April Festival on jokaydia which took place last weekend, but I’d like to add a few words about the Newbie Session that she asked me to help out with. It was very inspiring to be with a group of visitors who are keen to start exploring the educational potential of Second Life. One of the most important things that I learned during that session was not to take Second Life for granted. Interacting with those who are new to Second Life reminded me how inspired I was when I first created my avatar and started exploring some of the educational spaces inworld. It was like discovering a new frontier – it was a time to reflect on what I’d accomplished as an educator in the physical and online world, and to also think about the possibilities that await in the virtual environment of Second Life. In other words, it was a time to push my own thinking about education.

As I reflect on that Newbie Session last week, I am reminded of the wide-eyed enthusiasm of our guests and the importance of that almost child-like sense of wonder and exploration that we all experience when we first discover Second Life.

One thing that helps me keep that sense of wonder alive and makes me feel like a perpetual SL newbie is my passion for inworld photography and machinima. If you’re interested in my work, feel free to visit the home of my March Studios at blip.tv or my growing collection of Second Life landscape photography.

Finally, here’s a video to celebrate last week’s festival and, specifically, the magical Newbie Session balloon ride that reminded me of why I love Second Life: As our first Educator-in-Residence continues to demonstrate, it’s a place where the only limit is our creativity (… and the number of prims at our disposal :-) ):

For a full-screen version, click here.

From the lovely Pandora, jokaydia’s very own machinimist, check out this fantastic video!

It features one of our newest friends in Second Life – Sir Al of jokaydia, a knight in shining white armour (costume by Gnu, too!).