April Festival on the Islands of jokaydia!

Posted on April 15, 2008
Filed Under education, events, fun, jokaydia, secondlife, virtualworlds | 2 Comments

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Visit the jokaydia Blog for more info. Hope to see you there!

Croydon Lecture Hall and Sarawak Skybox

Posted on April 13, 2008
Filed Under education, secondlife, swinbuild, virtualworlds | Post a Comment

Woohoo! I’m on a roll this weekend, and am very excited to be finalising Koala Island’s spaces one by one. Today I managed to get both the Croydon Lecture Hall and the Sarawak Skybox complete, including the gardening and various bits and pieces of artwork.

Croydon Lecture Hall and Exhibition Centre

The Croydon Lecture Hall and Exhibition Centre is the most traditional ‘lecture-style’ build on Koala Island. It is named after Swinburne University’s Croydon Campus in Victoria, Australia, and has been designed to be used for large meetings of avatars.

Although I’m not a huge fan of lecture theatres in SL, there are times, when it is an efficient way to present information and bring large groups of avatars together. The Croydon Lecture Hall provides seating for 70 avatars and is also equipped with chat logger and slide/video screens. It also incorporates indoor and outdoor spaces to ensure that it is multi-purpose and can be used for a variety of different events and interactions.

The entrance way to the Croydon Lecture Hall includes a large open space with tools which ‘rez’ three different scene selections:

You can find out more about the Croydon Lecture Hall and Exhibition Centre on the Koala Island Wiki, or view the complete Flickr set with annotations here.

The Sarawak Skybox

The Sarawak Skybox is designed to host private classes, meetings and discussions and is situated in the sky above Koala Island at approximately 300m. The space is positioned to ensure privacy and is equipped with holodeck tools which ‘rez’ five different scene selections:

Facilitators from the Faculty of Education at Swinburne University will be encouraged to add new scenes to the skybox as their Second Life projects progress, so this space will eventually house a large collection of ’setups’ for groups from the Koala Island community to use.

You can find out more about the Sarawak Skybox on the Koala Island Wiki, or view the complete Flickr set with annotations here.

The Lilydale Atrium on Koala Island

Posted on April 12, 2008
Filed Under education, secondlife, swinbuild, virtualworlds | Post a Comment

It’s 1:30am and I’m finally done! The Lilydale Atrium on Koala Island is finished!

The Atrium is the largest building on Koala Island is a ‘replica-build’ based on the real-life Atrium at Swinburne’s Lilydale Campus in Victoria, Australia. It is designed to be a multi-purpose hub for Koala Island and includes a range of discreet spaces to meet, display student work and provide information about Swinburne University of Technology. It houses a number of spaces and resources including:

Click here to view a collection of snapshots of the Lilydale Atrium in Second Life on Flickr.

jokaydia Update

Posted on April 1, 2008
Filed Under jokaydia, news, secondlife | Post a Comment

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been working on a range of jokaydia related projects and am finally happy to announce a few exciting developments here!

The new and improved jokaydia Blog!

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The jokaydia Blog has been around for awhile.. but I’ve finally had the time to get it setup properly with links to all of our latest projects, events and resources. The blog is designed to be a web-based portal on everything jokaydia, and will be used to promote, record and share all of our jokaydian exploits in Second Life.

There is a huge range of resources on the blog, including:

Community members are also welcome to use it as a space to promote their own work, so please contact me if you’ve got some content you’d like to contribute.

We will be publishing all the latest news and info about jokaydia on the jokaydia blog from now on… so update your feed readers now!!

The jokaydia Art Gallery Space

Many thanks to all who entered our First Annual Photo Competition. The images submitted have been displayed in our new Art Gallery on the Islands of jokaydia - you can visit the exhibition here.

We’ll be announcing the winners soon! Stay tuned.

The jokaydia Art Gallery also doubles as a multi-purpose venue for events, presentations and workshops. It includes holodeck tools to allow jokaydia Residents to rez appropriate tools and furniture for their events quickly and easily. If you’d like a demo, IM me inworld! If you’re interested in using the space, you can make a booking here.

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The Virtual Classroom Project in Second Life

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And finally, and probably most exciting of all - Konrad Glogowski aka Konrad March in Second Life has launched our latest community project on the Islands of jokaydia - the Virtual Classroom Project. You can read the official announcement post here.

We are supporting a small space within the Islands of jokaydia Estate which will allow Konrad and an Educator-In-Residence to design and create an ideal learning space for use as either a virtual classroom in Second Life or as a prototype for a real-life classroom. We will be documenting the project here.

This is set to be a really interesting project, where Konrad will help facilitate and support an Educator-in-residence on our Island. The amazing Leigh Blackall aka Leroy Goalpost has agreed to join us as our first Educator-In-Residence on the project. You can view his first post on the project here.

Special thanks to Konrad for his inspiring ideas and willingness to run this project for our community. You are a star, Konrad!

Koala Island - New Meeting Centre Complete

Posted on March 9, 2008
Filed Under secondlife, virtualworlds | Post a Comment

I’ve been very busy finishing off the Wantirna Meeting Centre on Koala Island - Swinburne University’s presence in SL.

I’ve put together a Flickr Set which includes images and some notes explaining how the space works and what it includes. Hopefully we’ll also hold a tour/beta testing session during the week with selected colleagues.

Announcing the First Annual jokaydia Photo Competition!

Posted on February 29, 2008
Filed Under events, fun, jokaydia, news, secondlife | 2 Comments

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As part of our Leap Year Party this evening, I will be launching the First Annual jokaydia Photo Competition! 

Everyone is invited to take part in our first community art project/competition - which is all about taking interesting, artistic, crazy and/or creative shots to be displayed in our new Gallery space on jokaydia, which will launch at the end of March.

There’s only one catch - we’ve picked the location! Your images MUST be taken within the jokaydia Estate.

How to Enter

  1. Create a really interesting image using the Second Life camera tools.
  2. Upload your photograph to Flickr and tag it with ‘jokaydiaphotocomp08‘. You also need to add your image to the jokaydia Photo Pool. You’ll find instructions on how to join the group and add your image here.
  3. Wait with baited breath for the winners announcements in late March!
  4. Closing date for photo submissions is 12pm 25 March 2008 (SL Time). 

The Categories:

There will be 3 prize categories:

  1. Best Image - a panel of judges will select a winning image.
  2. Most Models - The image which includes the highest number of avatars
  3. Community Award - jokaydian Community Members will vote to award a prize.

The Prizes

Each winner will receive $10,000L and their work will be prominently displayed in the jokaydia Gallery as part of our launch exhibition.

Conditions, Details and Fine Print 

  1. All images include some part of the Islands of jokaydia in Second Life as the location.
  2. Only images uploaded to Flickr, tagged correctly and added to the jokaydia Photo pool can be considered.
  3. The judges decision is final.
  4. By submitting your image to the competition, you are acknowledging that you give permission for you artwork to be displayed on the jokaydia Estate (in Second Life) and on jokay.com.au and jokaydia.com.

For further information, please contact jokay Wollongong inworld or email joannamkay@gmail.com.

GOOD LUCK EVERYONE!

jokaydia Leap Year Party!

Posted on February 27, 2008
Filed Under events, fun, jokaydia, secondlife | 2 Comments

Join us for a celebration on the Islands of jokaydia… because a leap year is as good a time as any for a party!

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This is also an opportunity to bring together all our new residents… so come along, and bring a friend for some fun and dancing.

Commencing at 1:00am SL Time on 29 February (Check your local time here: http://tinyurl.com/2nmz6x).

Join us @ http://slurl.com/secondlife/jokaydia%20II/60/70/26.

For further info IM your hosts jokay Wollongong or Pandora Kurrajong… seeya there!

IOU: Weeks of Updates!

Posted on February 27, 2008
Filed Under blogging, education, events, fun, jokaydia, news, secondlife, swinbuild | 3 Comments

Its been a busy couple of weeks, with all sorts of new developments that I should be blogging about!

For starters.. about a week or so ago, I had the absolute pleasure of appearing on Tonight Live with Paisley Beebe in Second Life. The show is produced by a very creative and international group of people in Second Life and broadcast live by SLCN.

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You can watch the recording of the event here.

The process of appearing on the show was fun - the studio the team works from is well designed, and the crowd they attract is lively and just a bit cheeky! ;) I am always a bit nervous when I do these types of interviews, but I think it went ok.

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From behind the camera! Image by teachandlearn

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Paisley and jokay on Saturday Night Live. Image by teachandlearn

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The Saturday Night Live Crowd. Image by teachandlearn

Special thanks to Konrad who came along and documented the event for me - including the great images I’ve included here.

We’ve also been busy welcoming new residents on the Islands of jokaydia. It’s great to have Pandora Kurrajong, HeyJude Jenns and staff and students from St. Joseph’s College, Joie Despres, Daneel Ariantho, Rusty Kembla and staff and students from Hobart College, Niello Catteneo, and Leanteamer Zenovka and staff and students from Kangan Batman TAFE with us!!

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Daneel receiving access to his new land on jokaydia!

For those still interested in renting land, there are still a number of plots left for rent:

If you’d like further info or a tour, please IM me inworld or drop me an email!

The other exciting thing I’ve been working on is an Island design and build for the University of Swinburne, Australia. We are establishing Koala Island with a campus feel. It is branded to match the University’s other online spaces, and will be used to host a range of projects inworld during the coming year.

I’ll post further about this project shortly but for now, here’s a few screenshots.

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Koala Island by Moonlight!

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Building the Resource Centre which will house a range of useful resources.

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Study Writer standing outside his new office!

We selected ‘The Atrium’ at Lilydale campus as the key real-life structure we would replicate inworld.

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The Atrium Under Construction!

Below is an image of the real-life building and the SL version for comparison.

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The Virtual Atrium on Koala Island

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The Real-Life Atrium at Lilydale Campus

New Land Available on jokaydia!

Posted on January 29, 2008
Filed Under jokaydia, news | Post a Comment

For anyone who hasn’t heard via our inworld group or Facebook, this week I have released a new batch of rental properties available on the Islands of jokaydia.

I’d also like to welcome our new jokaydia residents, who have also recently secured plots - Pandora Kurrajong, Joie Despres and HeyJude Jenns! It’s great to have have all of them with us!

I’ve listed those that are remaining and their Slurls below for anyone interested in exploring them further. Note - spaces are going fast so check the notes in ‘About Land’ for up-to-date details.

Available Rental Properties as @ 29 February 2008:

Please note: Each of these plots is sized at 1024m and provides access to 234 prims. However, some can be joined to provide 2048m spaces which provide 468 prims. Email me for further details or IM jokay Wollongong in Second Life.

And yes - jokaydia can haz kitteh!….LOL

ISTE Speaker Series Session Coming Up!

Posted on January 25, 2008
Filed Under events, jokaydia, presentation, secondlife, tours, virtualworlds | Post a Comment

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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.