VWBPE 2017: Above the Book and taking a peek

The 2017  Virtual Worlds Best Practice in Education (VWBPE) conference will be taking place between Wednesday, March 29th and Saturday April 1st, 2017 inclusive. A grass-roots community event focusing on education in immersive virtual environments, VWBPE attracts 2200-3500 educational professionals from around the world each year.

A press day for the event was held on Sunday, March 19th, but due to physical world things, I ended up unable to attend. Therefore, this little sneak peek at things is coming a little late – although you can have a little explore around the conference regions yourself, as they are now open through until Sunday, March 26th.

The full calendar for the conference has been published, and it includes a new segment Above The Book, which will feature two one-hour interviews with individuals who “have been noteworthy and have, in one way or another, helped build a legacy in virtual environments: for educators, researchers, advocacy groups, communities of practice, content creators.“

For VWBPE 2017, the two interviewees will be Linden Lab CEO, Ebbe Altberg and noted documentarian, Draxtor Despres. The interviews will be conducted around topics they have suggested, and will feature questions submitted by Second Life residents and which have been selected on the basis on relevance and appropriateness to the goals of the conference, and its  legacy theme.

The interviews will take place as follows:

• Ebbe Altberg – Wednesday, March 29th at 13:00 SLT, on the topic of A Conversation about Education and Second Life
• Draxtor Despres – Saturday, April 1st at 15:00 SLT, on the topic Will VR Matter in Education? Lessons Learned from a Second Life Documentarian’s 10 Year Life.

Now, if you want to attend either or both of these sessions, there is a catch: you must submit a question for consideration in the interview.

You can find out more – including the application form for submitting a question – by visiting the VWBPE 2017 Above The Book information page. Not that the deadline for question to be submitted has been extended until 23:59 SLT on Sunday, March 26th.

Ahead of the conference there are a number of special activities open to all in both Second Life and OpenSim, such as Spanish Language Learning on Friday, March 24th (OpenSim) and  Lizards of ARS on Sunday, March 26th (Second Life).  And don’t forget the  VWBPE 2017 Passport to the Metaverse Web Quest: https://vwbpe.org/conference/vwbpe-2017-passport-registration.

If you wish to bring a colleague or friend in-world to tour the conference regions and attended VWBPE, the Rockcliffe Registration Portal is now open for people to register new avatars and find out more about the VWBPE conference in-world. Just point them towards https://urockcliffe.com/reg/second-life/ where they’ll be able to follow easy instructions to get started. It’s recommended that you get them to register at least a day or two ahead of the conference proper, so they can get oriented and not miss any of the events and activities.

You can find out more about this year’s anniversary conference via the VWBPE website.