Dingo-blog
Southern Cross University
Top Dingo started working with the Southern Cross University a little over a year ago now to create their first Region in Second Life. As well as giving some insight into the University and providing an online meeting place, the primary intention of this initial build was to create an entry-point into SL for the staff and students of SCU that was comfortable and familiar.
As interest grows from within SCU in the educational uses for SL, the need has grown for a second Region to be created. The primary focus of this second region will be to create scenarios which can be incorporated into classrooms and have a beneficial impact to the way students learn. The design and content of the region will be guided by a collaborative team headed by Associate Professor Allan Ellis.
Createworld 09
A couple of weeks ago Top Dingo was invited by the Apple University Consortium (AUC) to run a four hour hands-on workshop on 'An Introduction to Making Machinima' at the Griffith University, South Bank campus, as a part of the Create World 2009 Convention.
The workshop was yesterday and we had a fantastic time guiding a group of people through the essentials of recording some footage from Second Life with Screen Snapz Pro and editing them together with iMovie. We are pleased to say everyone managed to make and export their own machinima, and many said they could not wait to get home and start making some educational or creative machinima of their own. Some even uploaded their work to youtube as the class finished up. Great bunch of people, was nice to share our knowledge with people we know will make good use of it :).
Southern Cross Uni staff launch
This week Southern Cross University unveiled to staff the first stage of their Second Life Campus. Interaction Island was officially opened by Professor Paul Clark, Vice Chancellor of SOuthern Cross University. After the launch, unveiling of the plaque and fireworks the attending faculty heads, staff and visitors were encouraged to explore the facilities.
Interaction Island is a collaborative work led by Associate professor Allan Hastings, and the build by the Top Dingo team.
Currently, Southern Cross operates real life campuses in Coffs Harbour, Lismore, Tweed Heads, Byron Bay and Sydney with a total of around 16,000 students.
Party in the Outback
Last weekend Aussie band Spacejunky had a little play in the outback to celebrate their birthdays. We took a few pics to share of the fun on Australia Sim at Uluru, and later at Space Junky HQ.
Art Auction for Charity at Australia SIm
Top Dingo was proud to be asked to host an art auction in the forecourt of the Opera House in our 'Australia' sim in Second Life. The event was organised and run by Mariposa Upshaw, the new curator of the Opera House Gallery. Mari organised a very impressive lineup of Australian artists to donate their work to be auctioned off as a part of the Jamm for Genes event.
Jamm for Genes is an annual multi - sim event organised inworld musician OhMy Kidd to raise money and awareness of Jeans for Genes (http://www.jeansforgenes.org.au). The Auction, following entertainment by OhMy and Jackdog Snook, was well attended by art fans from Australia and around the world. Spirited bidding saw the art raise $L90,000 towards an amazing event grand total of $L477,751 in donations to the Jeans for Genes organisation.
This was the first event organised in Australia by the new curator of our Opera House Gallery and what an awesomely great way to kick off Top Dingo's partnership with Mari.