April Festival on the Islands of jokaydia!

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

Croydon Lecture Hall and Sarawak Skybox

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

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.

IOU: Weeks of Updates!

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

Learning Technologies 2007 Slides

I WILL post an update on all the things I’ve been up to lately - including eLearning07 and the Learning Technologies Conference 2007. In the meantime, check out the slides below!

SlideShare | View | Upload your own

eTools n Tips Recording

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For those who are interested, there’s a recording on from my recent Elluminate Session for the Flexible Learning Framework’s eTools n Tips Event.

Access the recording here and the Slides here. I also provided a handout for participants which you and download here.

Also, for those who attended and wanted the links I referred to during the session:

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Get a Second Life!

Yet another Slideshare I put together. This time for a presentation to SA LearnScopers which I did a few weeks ago.

SlideShare | View | Upload your own

Enjoy! ;)

Upcoming Events: Go Virtual 07!

OMG - what have I gotten myself into.. hehehe! ;)

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Upcoming Regional Event for LearnScope - which will be happening in both Wollongong and jokaydia on the 24th of September and is going be a very challenging - but I’m also expecting very exciting day for me!

Read more about it here and here.

Looking forward to seeing some of you there! ;)

Hot Topic for SI on SL and ED

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Sean and I gave an hour long presentation for the Sydney Institute of TAFE as part of their Hot Topic program.

The Hot Topics session are designed provide staff from across all campuses of the Institute with regular online professional development session via Adobe Connect. A great idea for providing a flexible way for people to tap into PD easily and from their desks.

We had more than 40 participants in the session, and the level of questions from the audience was fantastic, even though we had a few problems with my sound.

Anyway, you can view the Adobe Connect recording here, and the MP3 here.

Thanks to Steph and Julie for inviting us to present… and to all the attendees - it’s great to see such interested in SL! ;)

An Overview of Opportunities for Science Education in Second Life

Perplexity Peccable, a colleague of mine in Second Life sent me a great link to a machinima she’s put together showcasing opportunities for science education in Second Life. Check out Science Learning Opportunities in Second Life below:

Congrats and thanks Lexi! A fabulous first masterpiece and a great overview.

Perplexity and her colleague Vitesse Vella have also released some fantastic Slideshares well worth checking out. See: Why Work & Teach With Second Life? and Getting Started in Second Life.

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