Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education 2017 opened today, with Arisia Vita playing the tunes as we awaited the ribbon to be cut to officially open this year’s educational conference.
The conference is a peer reviewed community event, with clearly a focus on education and more to the point, education by use of Virtual Worlds. Education is a life long learning pursuit so conferences such as this one are very much welcome.
The conference does not just revolve around educators sitting down and talking about education, as important as that is, there’s also fun to be had, here are today’s listed events :
- VWBPE 2017 Grand Opening Ribbon Cutting Ceremony – 11:00 AM – 11:30 AM SLT
- Above the Book: Ebbe Altberg: “A Conversation about Education and Second Life” – 01:00 PM – 01:50 PM SLT (This session will be held privately by invitation and streamed to the Main Auditorium.)
- Quadrivium Networking Topic: VR Technology on the Horizon – 02:00 PM – 02:50 PM SLT
- Social: The Freewheelin’ Electric Tambourine Man Parade – 03:00 PM – 03:30 PM SLT
- Social: Lightning Production’s Bob Dylan and The Band Tribute Concert – 03:30 PM – 04:30 PM SLT
- The Keys to Legacy: A VWBPE Quest – 04:30 PM – 04:50 PM SLT
- Keynote: Celia Pearce, “The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same: Twenty Years in Virtual Worlds” – 05:00 PM – 05:50 PM SLT
- Lizards of “ARS”© Installation Participatory Play – 06:00 PM – 06:50 PM SLT
- Through the Visual Literacy Lens to Learn Ecosystem – 06:00 PM – 06:50 PM SLT
- Quadrivium Networking Topic: Teaching in Second Life, Art and Visual Literacy – 06:50 PM – 07:50 PM SLT
Plenty of varied events, full details and SLURLS can be found here : https://vwbpe.org/vwbpe-news/vwbpe-2017-event-schedule-day-1-wednesday-march-29
I would also advise you to keep your eyes on the main event calendar.
Wait wait wait I hear some of you say, the Ebbe Altberg event is private, how do we see or hear that? Fear not, going inworld is not the only way of accessing the conference, you can watch live here : https://vwbpe.org/conference/vwbpe-2017-watch
Alternatively you can watch a stream inworld at the main VWBPE auditorium.
The conference isn’t all panels and discussions either, there are plenty of exhibits to be seen and this is where we see that education in virtual worlds isn’t just about well known universities having a virtual world presence, it’s also about virtual world created educational communities exemplifying the work they do too.
Rockcliffe University Consortium, Stratford University and Caledon Oxbridge all have exhibits and if that’s not enough for you, Beth Ghostraven has an exhibit which exemplifies suitable attired for educational conferences in Second Life.
This doesn’t mean that the educational community in Second Life are a stuffy crowd, far from it, you will find all sorts of weird and wonderful avatars at the conference.
There’s also a chance that you will bump into some Second Life bloggers, the pair below are examples of the dangers of running into bloggers as I sneaked a photo of myself alongside Daniel Voyager.
Education faces many challenges over the coming years, but education is also willing to embrace technology to deliver courses and educational opportunities, conferences like this are very important and most of all, they also have an element of fun for people all over the world to network in a virtual space.
VWBPE Website : https://vwbpe.org/