Virtual Worlds Best Practice in Education Conference 2017

Virtual Worlds Best Practice in Education (VWBPE) annual conference is a global grass-roots community event focusing on education in immersive virtual environments. This year they are celebrating their 10th year! The theme of this year’s conference is ‘Legacy’ and it will run from March 29th till April 1st. You can click over to VWBPE’s calendar to see all of the events and timings.

This conference is being held completely in Second Life and is open to the public and free with an amazing line-up of speakers, workshops, sim demonstrations, poster presentations, and more. The conference will cover a wide range of subjects concerning virtual worlds and their use for education, virtual reality, smart games, arts and science, and the future of technology.

They had Immersive Experiences happening all last week, which I unfortunately didn’t get a chance to blog about, but you can still check out the different exhibits. I will include a list of landmarks as well as a a list of links for VWBPE so you guys have easier access to the locations and information about the conference.

This year’s three keynote speakers include:

1. Dr. Celia Pearce (SL: Artemesia Sandgrain): The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same: Twenty Years in Virtual Worlds – Wednesday, March 29, 2017, 5:00 p.m. SLT/US Pacific Time
2. Chris Dede (SL: Chris Olejniczak): How Immersion in Virtual and Augmented Worlds Helps Students in the Real World – Friday, March 31, 2017, 1:00 p.m. SLT/US Pacific Time
3. John Lester (SL: Pathfinder Lester): Beyond Escapism: Virtual Worlds, Vulnerable Populations and Social Good – Saturday, April 1, 2017, 4:00 p.m. SLT/US Pacific

Click over to the VWBPE’s website to read their bios. All of the keynotes will be held in the VWBPE Main Auditorium.

This year they are also featuring a new interview feature segment called “Above the Book.” For this they are interviewing two individuals in a private live studio session and only those that had submitted questions ahead of time will be invited to attend. However, these hour long interviews will be live streamed so we can all see. Following are the individuals being interviewed, timings and topics:

1. Ebbe Altberg (SL: Ebbe Linden): A Conversation about Education and Second Life – Wednesday, March 29, 2017, 1:00 p.m. SLT/US Pacific Time
2. Bernhard Drax (SL: Draxtor Despres): Will VR Matter in Education? Lessons Learned from a Second Life Documentarian’s 10 Year Life – Saturday, April 1, 2017, 3:00 p.m. SLT/US Pacific Time

Now here are some links to VWBPE that you may find informative:

• VWBPE Website
• VWBPW Calendar
• VWBPE on Facebook
• VWPBE on Twitter
• VWPBE on YouTube – speeches and interviews will be live streamed here
• VWBPE Gateway – Main Landing
• VWBPE Main Auditorium
• The Legacy Exhibit – celebrating 10 years
• Underwater Park Entrance
• Social Area – the underwater scooter tour I went on in the video is located here

Now watch my video tour of the underwater scooter tour on YouTube: https://youtu.be/u_3hrMOBoC8

While we’re on the discussion of Mr. Draxtor Despres, he recently started a hashtag on his Facebook and Twitter where he asked people to tell him which one of the Drax Files Worldmakers Episode was their favorite. You can see a playlist of them all here and then reply back to him with the #FavoriteDrax hashtag. Of course, I also shared my favorite!

#FavoriteDrax hard to pick a fav but gonna go with the first one because it’s just a genius series & I was in it! 😛 https://t.co/zJRa96sW0l https://t.co/oqVvOc5aca

— Strawberry Singh (@strawberrysingh) March 27, 2017

Also I wanted to say that if I do end up going to the conference and explore the sim a bit more over the next few days, I will try and live stream if I get the chance. My live stream link on youtube is here.

My style credits for the picture and video:
Shape: StrawberrySingh.com Catya 2 Shape by Strawberry Singh
*Mesh Body: Maitreya Mesh Body – Lara V3.5 by Onyx LeShelle
*Bento Hands: Slink Hands – Dynamic – Female V1.3 by Siddean Munro
*Mesh Head: CATWA HEAD Catya v2.10 by Catwa Clip
*Skin Applier: Insol: Diana by AlMercury (@ Uber)
*Hair: TRUTH HAIR Harmony [Ponytail] by Truth Hawks
*Hairbase: Insol: Pony haibase by AlMercury (@ Cosmopolitan)
*Pants: Blueberry – Gracie Pants – With Boots by Blueberryxx
*Top: Blueberry – Loli – Hoodie Top by Blueberryxx (@ C88)
*Earrings: erratic / hoop earrings / gold by Erratic Rain
*Necklace: MG – Little Memory Locket – Short by Maxi Gossamer
*Book+Pose: Sari-Sari – I <3 books! by AbbyAnne