Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education – Press Release

We’re gathering “In-World” and you are invited to join us!

Representatives from hundreds of educational institutions and related fields will gather in Second Life for a three-day global conference March 27-29 to demonstrate the potential that virtual worlds offer to transform education and how students of today and tomorrow can become active participants in their learning (see release below).

Many of the presenters in the Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education Conference are involved in existing education groups in Second Life and/or have established campuses, libraries and course-related projects for university and K-12 students in virtual world spaces.

This is the largest education conference of its kind organized to take place completely “in-world,” with more than 70 presentations planned over the course of three days. Presenters are from Canada, U.S., Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Portugal, France, UK, Spain, etc. Students from The Open University, Harvard, Texas State, and Stanford are just a few of the many universities and colleges that have virtual education environments on Second Life, where students can meet, attend classes, and create content togethe (see Virtual Environments Enable New Models of Learning).

For additional information, please visit the Conference site.

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Virtual World Best Practices in Education 2009 – PRESS RELEASE

ARE VIRTUAL WORLDS THE CLASSROOMS OF THE FUTURE?

2009 Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education Conference (VWBPE) Bringing together Educators from around the World in Second Life®, March 27-29.
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March 17, 2009 — Virtual world educational environments may not replace real classrooms (yet), but they are becoming integral to the future of education, say the organizers of the 2009 Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education Conference to be held in Second Life®, March 27-29. Conference keynote speakers and panels will focus on how virtual world environments can help today’s learners become all they can be and build the work force of tomorrow.

“We are a global grass roots community that is collaborating and co-sharing knowledge about the role of virtual world environments in education today,” said, Marlene Brooks of Memorial University, CA (Zana Kohime, SL) program chair of the conference. “Our goal at the conference in Second Life® is to use virtual worlds as the centerpiece for discussion of the questions that impact all of our futures: What is education? What is teaching? What is learning?”

The three-day conference will be an opportunity for virtual communities from around the world to showcase projects, courses, events, and present research that lead to best practices in education. From presentations on the architecture of designing a virtual classroom and campus to projects that engage middle school students with math, science and languages to the award-winning 3D-Wiki technology created in Second Life used to design a medical clinic in Nepal, the VWBPE conference is dedicated to furthering the creation of innovative, interactive and immersive environments.

Keynote speakers (see list below) and panelists for the conference represent a wide range of institutions, leading universities as well as K-12 school systems that use Second Life® as part of their educational programs.

The Virtual World Best Practices in Education (VWPBE) conference originated from the 2007 Second Life® Best Practices in Education Conference. Educators are one of the most vibrant and growing groups in Second Life® with an outreach to more than 6,000 SL residents.

Register here. Registration is free to all conference attendees.

Virtual World Best Practices in Education 2009 – Keynote Speakers

Friday March 27 to Sunday March 29 provides an opportunity for the education community, from around the world; to meet, socialize, and learn about the use of 3D virtual technology for today and tomorrow.

This is a link to program information, and you can also check our wiki. Please note, the program information is updated daily and the final version available on Friday, the first day of the conference. So, check the program schedule often as additional presentations, events and activities are posted.

The following are a few of the keynote and guest speakers.

David Gibson
College of Engineering and Mathematics, University of Vermont
Game-based Learning Theory: A synthesis of ideas to help plan, implement and assess serious games
Can games be fun and still effectively teach things? Don’t the needs of having “objectives” and capturing “assessment data” wreck the idea of a game? This talk will start a dialogue with participants by using three overlapping theories to think about 1. how people learn, 2. what happens when people interact with something like a game, and 3. what an experience has to have to be “game-like.” The synthesis of theories might be called “game-based learning theory.” How deeply we get into the synthesis theory will depend on the participants and the discussion.

Jon Brouchoud
Crescendo Design
The Architecture of Virtual Education: Design Strategies for Developing and Maintaining a Virtual Campus in Second Life
In this presentation, real-life architectural designer Jon Brouchoud will describe the many challenges and opportunities afforded by architectural design in virtual worlds. Jon has been studying the architecture of virtual education, and will describe some common approaches to organizing design and construction projects in Second Life. He will describe some of the more universal characteristics of successful virtual architecture that work well, and other strategies that don’t work as well.

Dr. Patrick O’Shea
Graduate School of Education, Harvard University, HARP Director
Handheld Augmented Reality Project (HARP) using GPS-enabled Handheld Computers to Teach
The speaker will describe and demonstrate the technology used in the Handheld Augmented Reality Project (HARP). Using GPS-enabled handheld computers, this project teaches math and language arts content to middle and high school students. As students walk around a physical environment, they are tracked by an avatar on their handheld computer moving around a map of the students’ location. This avatar triggers characters and objects as the student moves around. This session will define Augmented reality, demonstrate the HARP technology, describe the HARP curricula development process, and describe preliminary results from testing the HARP augmented reality process.

Tom Boellstorff
Department of Anthropology, University of California, Irvine
Virtual Learning: Practices and Possibilities
This will be an informal discussion about experiments with learning in virtual worlds and what the future might hold in terms of creative uses of virtual worlds for education.

Rik Panganiban
Global Kids
“Aha!” Moments from RezEd.org and Global Kids
Rik Panganiban of Global Kids will describe some of the key “Aha!” moments that Global Kids has experienced after three years of educational programming in the virtual world, as well as some of the key lessons from the 1,600 member strong RezEd.org network that Global Kids facilitates. Global Kids, a 20-year-old youth development nonprofit, uses its experience working with thousands of real world teenagers in New York City to inform how it uses the tools offered by Second Life and other virtual worlds.

Mary Ann Clarke
Texas Wesleyan University
Science is the Next Best Thing to Recess: Science Education at Second Life
Science can be seen as a combination of imaginative play with meticulous work. At Second Life, scientists and science lovers have spread their playgrounds across the growing landscape. Who’s coming to play? We’ll look at some selected science sims to see how they are being used for different learner populations.

Elizabeth Thoman
Center for Media Literacy
Media Literacy Best Practices
How media literacy transformed itself from a laughingstock to an ‘essential skill’ for 21st Century Education. Historically an understanding of literacy that expands reading and writing instruction to include images, sounds and popular culture (as well as print) now also must incorporate all types of digitally delivered interactive media.

Luyen Chou
School Net
A framework for twenty-first century learning – the yin and yang of constructivism and accountability
This session advances the hypothesis that new technologies, and the emerging realities of mass customization and data-driven decision-making, allow us to envision a world in which the antithetical relationship between child-centered learning and accountability are reconciled. This fusing of education outlooks is the key to teaching and learning that is future-facing rather than mired in the failed practices of the past.

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