VWBPE 2024: MYTHIC ORIGINS

March 14-16, 2024

Mission and Team

Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education is a global grass-roots community event focusing on education in immersive virtual environments. This open conference is organized by the Second Life community to provide an opportunity to showcase the learning that takes place using virtual worlds. Everyone is encouraged to present, attend and take part in this discussion of collaborative deeper learning and co-presence in virtual worlds and games.

What qualifies as a virtual world?

A virtual world is an online community that takes the form of a unique environment through which users can interact with one another and use and create ideas irrespective of time and space. Virtual worlds can be either 2D or 3D. They may be co-located or distributed. The core aspect that defines a virtual space is that a virtual environment provides a uniquely shared space for emerging relationships and serves as a foundation for the development of knowledge creation and sharing.

Examples include Second Life, OpenSim, Unity, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, World of Warcraft, Eve Online and many others. These virtual environments are characterized by an open social presence and where the direction of the platform’s evolution is manifest in the community. This is unlike systems such as WebEx, Sococo, VenueGen, and other platforms which are focused on more utilitarian purposes to a closed audience.

What will I learn?

Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education is a meaningful way for presenters to share their research and experience about the rich learning systems in virtual worlds and games. This free online conference is produced entirely by volunteers. Conference proceedings are published as the Journal of Virtual Studies by Rockcliffe University Consortium.

So, how does an unaffiliated group of educators come together without being part of a formal professional development organization and yet consistently produce a 3D immersive event of this scale? It’s a mystery – or it is until you have participated in this type of collaborative learning environment.

Who attends VWBPE?

Over 2000 attendees representing 90 countries participate in 150-200 online presentations including theoretical research, application of best practices, virtual world tours, hands-on workshops, discussion panels, machinima presentations, and poster exhibits. You do not have to be a formal academic to participate. Our community includes those in the education field, those that support educators through products and services, and those those accomplishments, and creative works, have been inspired by curriculums involving digital media.

What are the Goals of VWBPE?

To the best ability possible, VWBPE provides educational and networking opportunities that are relevant to educational curriculum development utilizing virtual environments and “best practices”.

These include

  • helping to build community through extension of learning best practices to practical application of those ideas and techniques;
  • providing networking opportunities for educators and the communities that help support education; and
  • providing access to current innovations, trends, ideas, case studies, and other best practices for educators and the communities that help support education.

Who can I talk to for more information?

Each year the organizational committee is represented by different members of the educational community. This year, the following individuals comprise the VWBPE organizational committee:

Executive Committee

  • Kevin Feenan
  • Lorraine Mockford
  • Becky Adams

Organizational Committee

  • Programs: Chair: Lorraine Mockford, Vice-Chair: iSkye Silverweb (SL)
  • Information Technology: Chair: iSkye Silverweb (SL)
  • Logistics / Finance: Chair: Kevin Feenan Vice-Chair: Leticia De Leon
  • Marketing & Communications: Chair: Beth O’Connell Vice-Chair: Pi Illios (SL)
  • Outreach: Chair: Lorraine Mockford
  • Social: Chair: Killashandra Lavendel (SL)
  • Volunteers: Chair: Elli Pinion (SL) Assistant Chairs: Bluebarker Lowtide (SL), DeeDee Beaker (SL), Buffy Beale (SL)

For more information please contact:

Kevin Feenan
Phone: 916 250 2502
E-mail: Send an Email