Konrad Glogowski and Jokaydians

Posted on July 1, 2008 by Judy O'Connell

We love inspiring each other! So those Jokaydians who are at NECC were stoked to be able to meet up with Konrad our fellow Jokaydian whose research and thinking provides the bedrock to educators working with online tools, and in-world tools.

In true Jokaydian fashion we jumped on the opportunity to stream Konrad’s presentation into Jokaydia, for our SL friends. Dean Groom, Al Upton and myself grabbed our gear and set up to stream into Second Life. Will Richardson came into the room and jumped in with us to Ustream the session!

Konrad’s presentation Blogging Communities in the Classroom: Creating Engaging Learning Experiences inspired us in ways to transform our classrooms into a blogging community that will help students become competent writers and capable, critical thinkers.

Catch the video/chat recording at Will’s blog. Jump on over to read Konrad’s Blog of Proximal Development.

Jokaydia for teachers

Posted on April 1, 2008 by Judy O'Connell

I’m so lucky to know so many fabulous educators in Australia and around the world. Apart from the usual social networking connections, I also enjoy what I learn through my interactions with my colleagues in Second Life.

So I must promote the work of my most favourite Second Life educator, Jo Kay – and highly recommend a visit to her newly designed blog at Jokaydia.com.

Please drop by and read the blog, because there is a wealth of information there. Check out the latest projects too. Better still, come on over to Jokaydia, and visit ‘in world’ and make some new professional connections.

Thanks Jo!

Introduction to Second Life – Edublog awards

Posted on December 3, 2007 by Judy O'Connell

I’d like to share this great overview of Second Life from Jo Kay and Sean Fitzgerald once again, and recommend their wiki Second Life in Education. Both Jokaydia Island and the wiki have been nominated for an Edublog award.

I have joined Jokaydia in this great Second Life adventure – how else can I develop my understandings so as to nurture the learning opportunities for my students in classroom and library learning environments? 🙂

Thanks to Jo and Sean for their great mentorship in this field!

Introduction to Second Life

Second Life – so much is happening!

Posted on November 5, 2007 by Judy O'Connell

I get the chance to do many exciting things within my work – and each year brings exciting new challenges. Last year it was Web 2.0. This year it is virtual learning!

Some of our teachers have been involved in the NSW Learnscope project. This has been a great inspiration, and exciting because it has opened new doors and new opportunities. Melinda and Dean regularly write about the project. The Learnscope eLearning2007 conference was held 1/2 November in Sydney, and some 35 teams have taken a journey into using Web2.0 and Virtual Learning – each with it’s own focus. The details of the teams and their projects are available on the Wiki.

Dean wrote some great comments about this event and what he’s learned this year. He seriously challenges our ideas about Web 2.0, because he has challenged his own.

Has it worked – hell yeah. The students achieve more in less time and the quality of the work is excellent – they love a challenge and rise to it again and again. Will I go back? No.

Dean and I have taken up a small residence each in Jokaydia (an Australian education island managed by Jo Kay), so as to fast-track our knowledge of learning possibilities in SecondLife. This is hard going right now, as we are working late at night meeting with educators from Australia and around the world – all committed to moving learning into the 21st century – as the kids understand it!

If you’d like to explore Jokaydia with its the education facilities, then drop in via my place at Heyjude Hall. Thanks to Dean for the design of the sign!

I haven’t got anything ‘happening’ yet, but membership of Jokaydia means I can learn, share, and use the facilities on the island, as well as provide information at my own residence. Dean will also be putting up a great showcase of teaching ideas from his classroom at his residence.

Most importantly, Dean will be linking from those ideas directly into Skoolaborate and the superb initiatives underway there. Skoolaborate is a serious education initiative taking place in the Teen Grid, and which will (I believe) show us the real 21st century learning futures of our kids! All thanks to our own Sydney master of innovation, Westley Field. Good one!

I’ve added a few videos about Second Life. The last one, Seriously Engaging from New Media Consortium, was first seen by me ‘in world’ during the eLearning07 conference, after being taken on a tour of the fantastic virtual NMC facilities by that famous dog CDB Barkely, whom I wrote about recently.

Introduction to Second Life

Educational Uses of Second Life

History of Global Kids in Teen Second Life

National Media Consortia Campus: Seriously Engaging

Dispatches from Downunder – catching up with Alan

Posted on October 27, 2007 by Judy O'Connell

Saturday has an exciting edge to it for me. Alan Levine has finally made it back to Sydney on his travelling tour Australia, which he has been documenting in his flipped version of his blog at CogDogRoo!

Alan is an inspiration to many of us, so if you haven’t added his blog to your RSS feeds, then you’d better catch up now! CogDogBlog is Alan’s place to bark about cool technology, web X.0 hype, weird web sites, photography, and other targets big and small.

This is my chance to say thanks Alan! Thanks mate!

Alan is a pretty important guy really 🙂 as Director, Technology Resources and Member Services of the New Media Consortium (NMC) as well as the Vice President Community and CTO with an international group of colleagues. In Second Life everyone knows he’s a dog (CDB Barkley)!

I met Alan recently ‘in world’ during a NSW Learnscope seminar being hosted on Jokaydia Island (where I have the good fortune to regularly meet educators from Australia to talk the good talk). In fact we had a good gathering at HeyJude Hall last night (that’s my place in Jokaydia and I’m Heyjude Jenns ‘in world’). Thanks to Sue Waters (Ruby Imako) for managing all the introductions! Phew!).

I was so excited by the whole ‘in world’ seminar that I didn’t stop to talk or ask questions. Today its different. A bunch of us are meeting up with Alan for shopping, movie and dinner – somehow I think we’ll all be barking furiously for a piece of the action.

Later: From left to right – Angela, Judy, Alan, Westley and Lynnette.

Masters of the metaverse!

Posted on September 25, 2007 by Judy O'Connell

For once I was pretty well stumped for words – that’s because I was able to spend a day seeing leading innovation in education – the future really! Myself and two CEO teachers (members of our Learnscope project), Martin and Dean, travelled to Wollongong to participate in a Second Life event. Dean’s IT trainee also attended online with his own avatar.

For me, this was a first, and a day I would not have wanted to miss.

Congratulations to NSW Learnscope for the fabulous regional event Go Virtual 07- Teaching and Learning in Virtual Worlds for VET.

This was a ‘mixed world’ event – participants in the room, mixing with participants from Australia and around the world – attending the conference in a meeting space prepared specially for the event in Jokaydia. You should teleport to Jo and Sean’s meeting and conference location in Jokaydia, and check out all the fabulous presentations available.

Of course, we met and heard from the masters of the metaverse Sean FitzGerald and Jo Kay. Their Second Life in Education Wiki is a fabulous resource. What can I say – Wow! 🙂

We also had a fantastic analysis of SL work from Angela Thomas (aka Anya Ixchel in Second Life) from University of Sydney. Angela teaches English Education at the University of Sydney. Her research interests include digital cultures, new media literacies, multimodal semiotics and digital narratives. Angela has reviewed the event at Go Virtual!

We heard from the Learnscope e-Learning team – what an awesome job they have been doing. I certainly felt like the poor cousin from the school sector 😦

Joining us for a panel discussion, we heard from Alan Levine (New Media Consortia). Damn it! I was so gobsmacked by this stage of the day, I didn’t even realise I was hearing from CogDog, fellow blogger, twitter and general blogosphere guru pal. We also heard from Nick Noakes, Centre for Enhanced Learning and Teaching in HongKong.

Well for once we can grumble. While my schools have no access problems for anything Web 2.0 – Second Life is another thing. We have a few keen teachers ready to begin the exploration of this future form of learning. Let’s face it – it is not that much in the future. A year, two maybe? When we have figures like 15 million, and 20 million in asian countries actively involved in virtual social networking – how can we not begin to research the educational frameworks of virtual worlds?

I’ve been asking for over 12 months now to have work access and get a project going. Now we have young teachers like Dean who are adept at embracing and making best use of these technolgies. I’m not sure why we aren’t including the metaverse in our conversations about innovation – particularly now that it has been ‘voice activated’.

Yesterday those ‘in world’ saw and heard exactly the same as those in the conference room in Rydges – that’s because we all engaged via SL – and talked, saw presentations displayed, watched movies that highlighted particular points – and then socialised in that environment. OK – that part is different. I got in trouble for setting off rockets! But Dean gave me a cocktail to calm down. Thanks Dean.

Dean has already provided us with an opportunity to listen to Sean’s keynote presentation. A bit sketchy, but ideal while we wait for more. Go and listen on TeacherTube – pure gold!