Biography: Jo Kay

Jo Kay is an educational technology consultant, designer, and digital creator who has worked in online and virtual worlds education for more than 20 years. She operates as a freelance consultant through her company jokaydia.com, where she specialises in digital solutions for education, small businesses, and community organisations. Her expertise spans educational technology consulting and implementation, web development, virtual world design, and online community facilitation.

Jo is a pioneer in the educational application of virtual worlds and games, particularly in environments such as Second Life, OpenSim, and Minecraft. In 2007, she co-created a resource on “Educational Uses of Second Life,” recognising the potential of virtual worlds as ideal spaces for engaging students in immersive learning and for creating their own learning activities, experiences, and spaces. Additionally, she hosted and facilitated a virtual worlds in education community of practice for educators in both Second Life and OpenSim from 2007 until 2018. She also co-created and facilitated the Massively @ jokaydia Minecraft project, engaging students from Australia, New Zealand, the US, the UK, and beyond in student-directed learning in a sandbox game.

Another significant area of Jo’s work involves the implementation and support of digital portfolios and reflective practice frameworks in vocational and tertiary education settings. Her expertise in this area encompasses the design and deployment of ePortfolio systems that enable students to document, curate, and reflect on their learning journeys, and build a personal online profile.

Jo’s current focus is on open-source social networking platforms, and how they can serve as catalysts for meaningful human connection, community building, and collaborative learning. She hosts and facilitates several communities in the fediverse and contributes to the ongoing discourse around digital equity and autonomy, and how social media spaces can remain accessible, adaptable, safe, inclusive, and owned by the communities they serve, rather than by corporate interests seeking to monetise and/or weaponise them.