Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education 2010 conference.  That’s the official name.  Dates, 12-13 Mar. 2010. 

I reported on it before, when the call for papers was announced:
Virtual World, Real Education in Second Life

Now all the papers are in and the conference planning gets underway in earnest.  The Lindens are giving us 20 sims for the conference-- to be available about now.  So the builders can get busy on the design.  And the Program committee can get busy on reviewing the papers. 

The Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education (VWBPE) conference is a community-based project, with meetings held entirely inworld (in a virtual reality).    It is by nature multilingual.  That means we have to accommodate newcomers with many different languages.  In the next section I describe our efforts in that direction.

Viv Trafalgar wanted to give me a sneak peek at some of the new content coming for Heritage Key. I'd cast some doubt last fall on how well it worked for my class. So now I'll begin a few dispatches on what we found, on my return visit. This post focuses on the Tomb of Tut. I'll turn soon in another post to the orientation experience for Heritage Key.

I'm pleased that on almost all fronts that worried me, Rezzable's team has made some dramatic improvements to the areas I'd ticked off: lag, navigation, avatar customization, and stability.

Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education 2010 conference.  That’s the official name.  Dates, 12-13 Mar. 2010.    

Call for Proposals: Paper and Poster Sessions.  Submissions are due by Monday, February 15th 2010

The Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education (VW-BPE) is a community-based conference to let  participants of virtual worlds  share current teaching, learning and research experience and practices in 3D virtual environments.  Conference presentations focus on teaching/learning, scholarly work, projects, events, activities and innovative tools for education in virtual worlds.  Conference presenters’ focus on the identification of ‘best practices in education’ designed for 3D virtual world technology.

The conference will be held in several Second Life estates:

I'm pleased to be the host for an event next week, at the Second Life Education Roundtable, for two very special guests, Martin J. Keltz (SL: Marty Snowpaw) and Jena Ball (SL: Jenaia Morane). We'll meet on Montclair State University's virtual campus in Second Life [direct teleport link] from 2:30-3:30 SL Time (PST) Tuesday, November 3.

Location: Second Life® Education Roundtable
(picture by Ponderosafish at Olivia Hotshot's Flickr site for the group)

During our last Roundtable meeting, Jon Himoff of Rezzable covered a lot of ground. I've pulled out some call-out points from his talk:

Call-out Points:

Announcing the 2009 edition of the College Fair in Second Life

Oct 24 (Saturday) 5pm to 9pm SLT and
Oct 25 (Sunday) 5am to 10am SLT

A college fair in Second Life is very much like a college fair in real life. It is an opportunity for college and university representatives to meet with prospective students to share information. The virtual environment allows students and representatives from all over the world to interact with one another--and no one needs to leave home!
College representatives will set up booths at the fair location.  This is an opportunity to connect with a global audience to promote your school! It is also a chance to network with other educators who are exploring Second Life as an educational tool.

Sponsors:

1. Alliance Virtual Library (AVL)
For over three years AVL has offered library resources and services in Second Life and is proud to help to produce the second annual College Fair in Second Life.

RightAsRain Rimbaud, aka Jon Himoff, CEO of Rezzable, will give a talk in voice, with Q&A by educators, for the weekly Second Life Education Roundtable.  Topics will include the role of virtual worlds for education, Rezzable's decision to move more content to OpenSim, the Builderbot controversy, and Rezzable's vision for content creation.

The event run 2:30-3:30  SL Time next Tuesday, October 6, at the Montclair State University campus in SL:

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Montclair%20State%20CHSSSouth/130/180/2

Have a question to put to Jon in-world? You can submit advance Qs here and as time permits, moderator Ignatius Onomatopoeia will ask them at the event.

The University of Texas project Transforming Undergraduate Education Program is building a statewide virtual learning community of students, faculty, researchers and administrators.  The project has 50 sims in Second Life to support that effort.  (These may still be in construction and not yet open to the public.)  

A friend of mine is involved in that project, so I asked him to write a summary as Guest Bogger.

As I promised in the previous episode, this episode gives detailed instructions on how to bring an advance team into Second Life through the Rockcliffe University Gateway.  Only a few of the details are specific to the Rockcliffe Gateway.  You can modify them to fit another entry point.  The posters and notecards are free to copy at Cookie Visitor Welcome Center.

Instructions for leading the advance team into Second Life

Advance Team:  A leader and a few Skype-capable people.

1. Log on to SL yourself and go to Rockcliffe University Gateway

2. Establish a conference call on Skype to include yourself and the others on the advance team.

3. Send the people to this web page:  Rockcliffe University Consortium, Gateway page 

Scottish students and their teachers now have a new canvas for their projects: CANVAS (Children’s Art at the National Virtual Arena of Scotland). This Open Sim virtual world will provide learners a space to display art projects while avoiding the administrative difficulties associated with other  worlds blocked by school-system firewalls.