VWBPE 2022

In 2014, the Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education Organizational Committee instituted a new personal achievement award to recognize an individual who has provided outstanding service to both the field of education and the virtual world community at large.

Past recipients include Lynne Berrett /Wisdomseeker, Renne Emiko Brock / Zinnia Zauber, Barbara Truman/Delightful Doowangle, Valerie Hill/Valibrarian, Cynthia Calogne / Lyr Lobo, Andrew Wheelock / Spiff Whitfield, Alice Kreuger / Gentle Heron, and of course the award namesake, Selby Evans – our Thinkerer.

Sadly we lost our dear Barbara Truman this year after her amazing fight. She is missed by all, but her legacy lives on.

Seven of these were all around the conference over the past 3 days — generously sharing and supporting us, and we hope you were able to attend the Above the Book session, “Catching up with the Thinkerers” with Phelan and Lyr earlier today. They are all true collaborators and leaders. Please give them a round of applause.

The Thinkerer Award is presented to an individual whose deeds and actions have shown consistent selfless service towards the promotion of learning, community, and educational practices, and who exemplifies the spirit of cooperative development within immersive environments.

Dr. Doris Molero (Ed.D) a.k.a Pionia Destiny has been tireless in developing ways of teaching English and Spanish for more than 30 years. She combines teaching as a way to learn, education technology, and teaching for peace. Doris is an EFL professor at Universidad San Pablo Tucuman where she teaches English at Instituto de Ciencias Sociales, Política y Cultura e Instituto de Educación a Distancia y Tecnología Educativa. to Data science students. When she was back in her hometown, she taught at pre-grade, post grade, and doctoral level at Universidad Rafael Belloso Chacin in Maracaibo, Venezuela for 15 years.

Doris is passionate about language learning, instructional design, and related educational technologies, specifically 3D Multi-User Virtual Environments for situated, experiential learning. She’s part of Webheads in Action and TESOL, both important worldwide communities of language educators. She has been part of EVOVILLAGE, online training sessions that happen every year, as a moderator, creating courses for English teachers from the world in Second Life and Kitely. This year, they also explored VR platforms such as FrameVR, Mozilla Hubs, and AltSpace VR.

She has been a member of a variety of different communities of practice like VWBPE, Camelot project, Edunation, NANEC, Virtual Pioneers, Virtlantis, Chilbo, Ayuda Virtual, and roleplay communities as Avilion, Sylvhara, and Artstonia. Together with Nancy Zingrone and Nellie Deutsch she organized the first SLMOOC in 2014 and has been an organizer, supporter, and teacher in the yearly VWMOOC series since then. This year it will be its ninth edition.

She is a constant source of kindness, virtual world education practice, innovation in virtual world teaching, and inspiration.