I made this for a demo I’m going to do on Friday, but it has me reflecting on the impacts my virtual presence has had on me in the last few years.

And I promise I’ll update my blog with all the other things I’ve been doing very soon!

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

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:

• Lounge Areas – Couches and comfy spaces for informal events.
• Poster Display Boards – Frames designed to support student exhibitions and displays and ensure the space is easy to setup for poster sessions and to display student’s work. Includes a slide/video viewer which can be accessed by members of the ‘Swinburne @ Koala Island’ group.
• Discussion Circle – Seats up to 15 avatars and provides a simple setup for large group discussions. Includes a slide/video viewer which can be accessed by members of the ‘Swinburne @ Koala Island’ group.

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:

• Boardroom Style – Formal boardroom style, including slide/video screens. (Seats 9 avatars)
• Discussion Circle – Formal group discussion style, including slide/video screens and a chatlog-to-email tool. (Seats 16 avatars)
• Large Discussion Circle – Large group discussion style, including slide/video screens. (Seats 40 avatars)
• Garden Style – a magical garden space which can be used for discussion groups or small parties. (Seats 10 avatars)

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.

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:

• Atrium Entry Hall – A large open space, equipped with holodeck tools which ‘rez’ three different scene selections:
  • Circle of Chairs – Seats up to 12 avatars and provides a simple setup for large group discussions.
  • Discussion Sofas – Seats up to 25 avatars on comfy sofas. Includes a slide/video viewer which can be accessed by members of the ‘Swinburne @ Koala Island’ group.
  • Stage, Seating and Presentation Tools – Seats up to 50 avatars, and includes a slide/video viewer which can be accessed by members of the ‘Swinburne @ Koala Island’ group.
  • Tables and Chairs – Seats up to 24 avatars around small tables, and includes a slide/video viewer which can be accessed by members of the ‘Swinburne @ Koala Island’ group.
• Swinburne University of Technology Information Centre – which includes useful links and information about the Unversity and courses offered, our real-life campuses and student services.
• The Atrium Coffee Shop – an informal space for visitors to meet, chat and grab a virtual coffee
• The Koala Island Project Office – this space is current vacant, but will be used by students involved in projects on the Island
• Atrium Screening Room – Currently showing images from the University’s Spaceworks Program
• Atrium Gallery – Designed as a space to show and share student’s work. Currently showing images from the Swinburne University Image Bank
• Faculty of Higher Education Offices – the upstairs area of the atrium is dedicated to Faculty of Higher Education projects and includes a boardroom style meeting area.

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

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!

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:

• The About page – which gives a basic overview of our who we are and what we do and how to get involved
• The Events Calendar – which will provide an overview of upcoming events happening on our space
• The Current Resident page – which provides a directory of our residential community members and their projects
• The Rental Properties page – which provides a list of the land parcels currently available for rent on the Islands of jokaydia
• The jokaydia Projects page – which provides a list our current projects in virtual worlds
• The jokaydia Resources page – which provides links to all of our virtual worlds resources including the SLeducation Wiki, and the Venues and Resources on the Islands of jokaydia list.
• The Virtual Worlds Services page which provides an overview of the types of services we can provide.

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.

The Virtual Classroom Project in Second Life

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!

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.

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!

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

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!

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.

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.

From behind the camera! Image by teachandlearn

Paisley and jokay on Saturday Night Live. Image by teachandlearn

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!!

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:

• jokaydia Rental Property 1: http://slurl.com/secondlife/jokaydia%20II/170/91/25
• jokaydia Rental Property 2: http://slurl.com/secondlife/jokaydia%20II/203/92/24
• jokaydia Rental Property 8: http://slurl.com/secondlife/jokaydia%20II/137/68/25
• jokaydia Rental Property 9: http://slurl.com/secondlife/jokaydia%20II/137/109/27
• jokaydia Rental Property 10: http://slurl.com/secondlife/jokaydia%20II/93/66/26

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.

Koala Island by Moonlight!

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

Study Writer standing outside his new office!

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

The Atrium Under Construction!

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

The Virtual Atrium on Koala Island

The Real-Life Atrium at Lilydale Campus