Great news for all jokaydians who SLOODLE!

I’ve just finished setting up and testing the SLOODLE tools over at jokaydiaGRID and all seems to be working well! Yay!

This is a nice addition to our SLOODLE Hut on the Islands of jokaydia in Second Life (SLurl), and the jokaydia Moodle! webspace, which are both available for jokaydia residents to use.

I’ll be using these tools to experiment with some web-based newbie resources, and we’ll run some workshops for residents who are interested in the coming weeks. In the meantime if you’re particularly keen to start playing with SLOODLE on the jokaydiaGRID, feel free to drop me an email!

And a special thanks to the SLOODLE community for making their tools available to Opensim users! Go check out there resources at SLoodle.org!

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!

Dont forget to join us for our fantastic Unconference Event scheduled for tomorrow!

Eternal Life: Using 3D Virtual Worlds Technology For Life Extension and creating the new “Uploadable You”.

Futurist Dell Wilberg will be sharing his insights on the use of existing and future Virtual Reality and 3D worlds to extend your life both today and tomorrow. Did Ponce de León have the right idea and the wrong technology? Dell will set out to prove that you do not have to explore the everglades of Florida to find the mythical fountain of youth. It exists today if your willing to open your mind to the possibilities of Virtual World life extension.

Want to live forever? Find out how at Dell’s presentation. Presented using Second Life Voice and Multimedia!

Event Details:

• Date: Sunday 3 May 2009
• Time: 2pm AEST/ 9pm SLT. Check your local time here
• Location: jokaydia Meeting Hall (SLurl)

We had a great first Sloodle session @ jokaydia last night – which focussed on some simple stuff – including a basic overview of what Sloodle is, signing up avatars, the web chat tool and the presenter tools. Thanks to all who came along to join us! ;)

Our aim with these session is to give people a chance to play with the tools, and also to connect to other community members who are also interested in exploring how Sloodle could be used in their projects. I am also looking forward to exploring ways that we might use Sloodle to create a sort of 3D wiki at jokaydia’s Edusquare space (Slurl).

I’ve established a jokaydia Moodle Sandbox @ http://jokaydia.com/moodle to support these activities. All jokaydia residents and visitors are welcome to get in touch if they’d like to use this space for their own experiments. Email jokay Wollongong for more details!

And of course – you can always visit our Sloodle Hut @ jokaydia (SLurl), which provides a space for us to meet and collaborate around Sloodle and related tools on the Islands.

Sloodle Events!

Our next Sloodle event will be on 11 March 2009 at 8pm AEST – keep an eye on the jokaydia Events calendar for more details.

Oo!… and dont forget to go visit the Sloodle.org website or Sloodle Island (Slurl) to connect to the fabulous Sloodle team who hold regular events!

Over the last few weeks I’ve been doing lots of work on jokaydia resource collection, with the aim of consolidating and building on all the great things our community created in 2008. One of the first jobs on my list was upgrading and updating EduSquare, and I’m please to say that the EduSquare redevelopment project is well underway!

Since I created EduSquare back in 2007, it has always been designed to provide a meeting and resource space for educators who are new to Second Life. That hasn’t changed. However in 2009, I am interested in developing that idea further, with the aim of creating a 3D Community Learning Environment for jokaydia..kinda like those PLEs we talk about in the edublogosphere… and I’ll be exploring that idea in more detail over the coming months.

To begin the process, I’ve updated the build and created a more comfortable environment at EduSquare, which combines some new and old resources.

In many ways this process is very much like updating and reskinning my blog – just in 3D! As you can see, I need to do a bit more gardening.. but it’s coming along nicely. ;)

The key feature EduSquare is the Educational Landmarks collection. It now includes 32 landmarks to exciting educational spaces in Second Life and has been udpated extensively. Users can visit Edusquare and grab landmarks and a notecard with descriptions of each space.

This resource is particularly useful when doing tours in Second Life with groups of colleagues or students.

As well as the EduSquare Landmarks collection, I have created a wikipage which compliments the inworld resources. It is designed as a web-based resource which can be used in workshops and professional development activities.

It also provides a space for jokaydians and visitors alike to add suggestions for spaces that should be in the collection – which will assist us to keep the collection vibrant and interesting. I invite you to visit the wiki and add your suggestions in the table provided! We will update the Edusquare Landmarks collection on a bi-annual basis.

The use of a wiki here also illustrates how you can integrate the 2D web into a virtual space reasonably effectively. Hopefully one day soon we’ll be able to edit the wiki live from within SL.. but for now this is a workable solution.

As well as the landmarks collection, Edusquare includes a The Edu Hacienda, which is designed to house links to jokaydian and SLeducation resources in general.

At the moment, there are links to our various social networking spaces and websites, a video player with Torley’s fantastic Youtube videos setup for viewing , landmarks to the various edu-related spaces on jokaydia and various other goodies.

I’ve also uploaded more than 70 slides from the Educational Uses Resource which can be viewed as a slideshow – another handy resource for live demos and workshops!

In the future, I hope to create a Sloodle-backed tool here which will archive various tools (both inworld and web-based) created by the jokaydian community. Stay tuned for developments on that and opportunities to get involved!

Upstairs in the EduSquare Hacienda I’ve created a comfy, informal space for small meetings and friendly chats.

It includes the Timezone Wall – which helps new users to clarify what SLT is and how it relates to their local time zone. As this is probably the question I get asked most – I thought people might find it handy!

There is also a Google Calendar tool here which lists our upcoming events. You can also view it online here.

I hope you’ll visit EduSquare and The Edu Hacienda (SLurl) and explore the resources we’ve setup there. I’d really love to hear your feedback!

The EduSquare redevelopment project will continue over the next few months and I’ll report soon on additional resources.

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!

As you can see, I’m in the midst of an update of our Edusquare Space on the Islands of jokaydia!

Edusquare has been created to provide a meeting point and resource space for educators and others who are working in Second Life. It is surrounded by our resident’s spaces and provides several resources including the Educational Landmarks Wall, which provides landmarks to a wide range of educational projects in Second Life.

The plan for this space is to extend the tools and resources setup here to create a more useful collection of how-tos, newbie resources and landmark givers. The aim is to help visitors  to quickly gain an understand of some of the educational activties going on inworld, and to connect with others in Second Life.

And now I need your help!

If you represent an educational project inworld, or you have a favourite educational space in Second Life, PLEASE include a comment and SLurl below so I can update our Educational Landmarks Wall. This tool has been used extensively by both our informal visitors and tour groups and is a great way to promote your projects and draw new visitors to your space.

To visit Edusquare use this SLurl – but wear your hardhat. Construction will be ongoing over the next few days! ;)

jokaydia residents Patric and Henny have been requesting a dock between their two parcels on jokaydia III…. So I present to them.. and to everyone else:

The jokaydia Sailing Club!

Complete with boats to sail around in, and some nice atmospheric sound effects, you are welcome to use this space for informal get-togethers or small workshops, discussions and classes with your colleagues and students!

Visit the jokaydia Sailing Club on jokaydia III (SLurl). Happy Sailing! ;)

The amazing Azzura Supplee has been busy on jokaydia II this morning!

I asked her to give the shared spaces on jokaydia II an udpate and refresh, to create some more useful tools and spaces for our residents to share and meet in.. and omg, has she achieved that and more!

If you visit jokaydia II now, you’ll find Az busily working on our new Bloggers Tower (complete with warning lights for our paragliders and balloon riders!) – which will provide a home for our resident bloggers to display their sites, and also a space to meet to listen to podcasts and vodcasts! I’ll post a SLurl and update when the space is complete.. but I couldn’t wait to share it!

Thanks Az! Your contributions to our Island have been amazing in the short time you’ve been working with us. You are awesome! ;)

I thought I’d point to some of the fabulous blogs that are being written by the jokaydians, as they all include lots of information about our residents and their areas of professional practice.

So here goes Part 1 of jokaydians Blogging!… Commence feeding your RSS reader now! I’ll post Part 2 next week. ;)

Azzura’s Rants – authored by the amazing Azzura Supplee

Blog of Proximal Development – authored by Konrad March

Daneel Ariantho’s digital log – authored by Daneel Ariantho

Hey Jude – Learning in an online world – authored by HeyJude Jenns

KerryJ’s Neotenous Tech – authored by Pandora Kurrajong

Marlon J. Manrique: Resistance is Futile – authored by marlonj Meyers

Web 2.0 in PBL High School – authored by slammed Aabye