Blogging the e-Show n Tell 2007 Online Conference

I’ve been invited to join the eNetworks Team to blog their e-Show n Tell 2007 Online Conference this week. It should be fun.

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I’ve set up a blog on Edublogs especially for the event. Click here to visit.

If you’re attending the conference… I’ve love to hear your comments! Also, you might like to enter the photo competition! ;)

I’ll be back blogging on jokay.com.au on Saturday. Seeya at the conference! ;)

LearnScopers on jokaydia

On Thursday last week we met over at Enmore College for our final session with the ‘Using the Second Life Virtual World in Teaching and Learning’ LearnScope Team from Sydney Institute. It was fun to meetup with a small group from the team again… although a little bit of a shame more didn’t make it.

We started off with a great session with Dr. Cynthia Calongne aka Lyr Lobo Professor of Computer Science, Colorado Technical University - a fabulous educator in Second Life, who is working on all sorts of interesting stuff. Check out the slides from her presentation here and the recording of the session here.

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After a quick coffee break, we managed to do a few building experiments in Second Life. The team experimented with rezzing and manipulating prims and we tried out some rotating textures just for fun. I also gave them a sign frame to experiment with - so I’m expecting to see some creative signs about libraries, disabilities and Sydney Institute projects in the coming weeks! LOL!

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We also recorded the momentus occassion by convening for a team photograph on the Sydney Institute plot on jokaydia.

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Thanks everyone - I’ve had fun sharing and learning with you this year… and I’m looking forward to seeing your experiments in Second Life in the coming months! ;) A special thanks to Steph for the amazing work he’s done getting us access to Second Life from inside the TAFE network, to Paula for all her facilitation and team rallying, and of course to Sean for all his hard work and support!

Now… back to building… It’s time to get ready for eLearning07!

Second Life with Sydney Institute LearnScopers

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I had a great day yesterday - exploring Second Life with the team from the Sydney Insititute of TAFE LearnScope project. They are focusing on the possibilities for teaching and learning in Second Life, and today was our first opportunity to get together inworld and explore.

We had two sessions today. The first group experience a few technical difficulties, but using some alt avs I had prepared earlier and Steph’s 3G card we managed to get everyone inworld. We explored a number of spaces including Svarga, NOAA and the Second Life Library. We also enjoyed some freebie shopping… who knew you could pick up such cool stilettos for free! ;)

In the second session, we had a few less technical headaches, and a smaller group so things ran more smoothly. During this session we managed to get to Ars Virtua, Spaceport Alpha and our Virtual Hairdressing Salon which has recently moved to jokaydia.

A special thanks to the always super supportive Corwin Carillon aka Nick Noakes, who gave the second group an impromptu tour of his fabulous holodeck tools at Boracay. I always appreciate Corwin’s support, feedback and positive energy and he was wonderful with the group. They were really impresed! ;) A special thanks also to Steph and Paula who fab and supported the participants in figuring out their first steps in SL.

At any rate, I hope the sessions today provided the participants with lots of virtual food for thought, and I”m looking forward to hearing their ideas now that they’ve had a little taste of what Second Life is really like!

Now… for some real life sleep! ;)

Busy in Real Life & Second Life!

It’s been a busy month, both in Second Life and in the real world… but I haven’t forgotten this blog! ;) Time to catch up on a few things - including some stuff that I really should have linked to weeks ago!

eNetworks and the Australasian Second Life Showcase

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We delivered 2 presentations presentations for the Australian Flexible Learning Framework’s E-Learning Network’s e-Trends Online Conference. Check out the proceedings and recordings on the conference website - including Sean’s fantastic presentation on Virtual Worlds which you can listen to here (recorded Elluminate session).

We also presented an In-world Event: Showcasing Australasian Educational Projects in Second Life - which was a hoot. Representatives from a range of educational projects came and shared their ideas and expertise and we have a great crowd of educators with us at the event. Sean’s written a great blog post about the event here, and also done a great job of putting together the event documentation. View the slides from the event below:

The slides can also be viewed in-world at Jo and Sean’s Virtual Meeting Space: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Wasp/74/31/86/

The generosity of our presenters was amazing and I think the crowd enjoyed hearing about the projects they are working on. It was certainly a thrill to ‘max out our sim’ with 40 participants at our space in Wasp for much of the event. A great learning curve for us too - which has given me lots of ideas about how we can explore running mixed-reality events and conferences in Second Life.

Relaxing at the Learnscope Lounge

Yesterday we held the first of two workshops for NSW LearnScope - focussed on helping people find their feet and get started in Second Life.

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The sessions went well I think, and we managed to move a group of 15 newbies around to a few spaces in Second Life including our space in Second Life - Jo and Sean’s Virtual Meeting Space, Terra Incognita (SLurl) - Decka Mah’s fantastic action learning Island, the Heart Murmur Sim (SLurl) - where we saw a great example fo training in Second Life and Prim Hearts Amusement Park (SLurl) - which has some fantastic rides.

As part of supporting these events, I’ve established the LearnScope Lounge in-world.

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It provides a base for the participants from our workshops to use during their explorations. The Lounge is an example of how easy it is to setup a simple space the group to use as a meeting point, and includes a bunch of tools and resources including notecards for newbies, our slides and resources and some examples of cool tools including Angrybeth’s Whiteboards, a Podcaster and free virtual Learnscope t-shirts (Virtual Schwag!)

All NSW LearnScope particpants are welcome to visit and use the resources. I’ll be maintaining the space until the end of August. Visit @ http://slurl.com/secondlife/Wasp/10/90/89.

An Island?…..

In the last month or so we’ve been busily working on some new plans in-world…. including exploring options for purchasing and establishing our very own virtual Island. I can’t decide what to call it though….. Suggestions in the comments greatly appreciated! ;)

I’ll reveal more in the very near future, and am excited by the prospect of a new challenge in Second Life - planning and implementing my very own Island is an exciting prospect! I’m especially interested in developing some more extensive orientation resources for our participants in-world, as well as spaces for arts, community and educational projects.

Coming Up…

The next few weeks are likely to be busy too - with Session 2 of our Getting Started in Second Life workshops for NSW Learnscope Team Members, a session for the NMC TeacherBuzz group, an eNetworks 2007 Tour, a Knowledge Tree podcast and the kick-off of the Sydney Institute’s Second Life project…… so I better get back to work! ;)

HYPAR Hands-On in Second Life!

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Sean and I had the pleasure of presenting some workshops at the HYPAR Hands-On Workshop last Friday.

For those who don’t know ‘TAFE-speak’, the HYPAR program is a focussed on working with young people aged 15 to 19, and is designed to help the most disadvantaged young people in the community to engage in education and build pathways to further education or employment. For further info about HYPAR, check out their Hyparpaedia on Wikispaces or visit the EngageMe website.

Anyway, during the presentation, we provided an overview of some of the educational uses of Second Life, showed some videos, talked about both the Teen and Adult Grids and attempted to get everyone in world for a bit of an explore.

Despite some technical difficulties, I think most participants got an idea of how Second Life could be used. It was definitely exciting for us to hear how teachers working with youth at risk from a range of subject areas including construction, IT, communications, general education and many more are contemplating using virtual worlds with their students.

You can download the workshop material below:

You may also be interested in some of the online resources we shared during the workshop including:

We didn’t manage to get to all of them - but some of the places and spaces we recommended to participants included:

And I still can’t resist this video as a good overview of Second Life (you gotta love ‘the voice’!)

Coming Up Soon…..

Our next online event is coming up - check out the E-Learning Network’s Online Conference website for more info! ;)