Day: February 6, 2020

(“We now return you to our regularly scheduled programming…”  If you are looking for my blogposts about the Wuhan coronavirus/2019-nCoV, please click here. I am taking a one-day mental-health break from covering the situation, but I expect to be back at it tomorrow.)

As you might already know, the largest immersive, all-virtual conference ever is taking place very soon!

The 2020 Educators in VR International Summit, running February 17th-22nd, 2020, features over 160 speakers from around the world presenting across over 200 hours of virtual events, with many live streamed and recorded for future airing on our Educators in VR YouTube channel. Instead of in a physical, real-world location, the Summit will be held across many different social VR platforms: AltspaceVR, ENGAGE, rumii, Mozilla Hubs, and Somnium Space.

Lorelle VanFossen of the Educators in VR International Summit team has put out a call for more volunteers:

We need volunteers of all skills. Even helping to moderate for an hour or two during the six-day event is helpful. Or an hour or two a day. Or longer. Join this historical event by filling out our Volunteer Form.

The form states:

We are seeking volunteers to assist with the free, open-to-the-public Educators in VR International Summit February 17-22, 2020. This application takes approximately 5 minutes to complete thoroughly.

We are seeking volunteers familiar with moderation, hosting, and filming/live streaming in AltspaceVR, ENGAGE, and other social and educational platforms. Your participation will help ensure this 6-day event will be a success.

Educators in VR is an open, global, cross-platform community of educators, learners, researchers, teachers, and trainers exploring and collaborating with and in virtual and augmented reality.

The Educators in VR International Summit is a free and open to the public virtual conference featuring tracks on basic VR training and experiences, virtual language arts, corporate use, computer science and math, computer programming, medicine and science, coaching and personal development, and research into spatial technologies in education.

You may request to volunteer with a specific track, but such a request may not work out, so we appreciate your flexibility.

Experience in event moderation, hosting, or filming and live streaming in VR is highly recommended. Presentation “hosts” may be asked to introduce the presenters, facilitate Q&A, and run slides. Educators in VR will offer training rehearsals for moderation and hosting in the month prior to the event, and you would be required to attend at least one of these events.

Events will be hosted in AltspaceVR, ENGAGE, and other social and educational virtual reality platforms. Access to these requires registration for each platform, sharing your username for presentation and moderation privileges, and installation of the software and apps if you are selected to volunteer.

All virtual platforms permit desktop/2D Windows access and most HMDs including Oculus Go, Quest, and Rift, Vive, Windows Mixed Reality, Value, and most devices with access to Steam or the Oculus Store. Volunteering maybe in 2D with quality headphone and microphone or 3D HMD. As a volunteer, you will be responsible for ensuring your device is fully charged, you have backup device access, and you will be able to stay for the full length of the assigned event, unless other arrangements are made.

An active Discord account will be required as all event coordination, discussion, and some event moderation will be managed in our Discord channels for text and voice communications.

I hope that you will be able to volunteer. Here is the volunteer form.

Here is the invitation link to the Educators in VR Discord server.

Here is a link to the final conference schedule, if you want to volunteer to moderate, host, or film a particular session.

My presentation on social VR in libraries will be on Saturday, February 22nd, 2020 from 5:00 a.m. to 6:00 a.m. Pacific Time, on the ENGAGE platform. You are all welcome to attend! It will be livestreamed from ENGAGE to AltspaceVR, where most of the events are taking place.

If you can’t help out in person, but want to help out financially, the organizers have set up a GoFundMe 2020 Educators in VR International Summit Campaign to help offset the costs of this free and open-to-the-public all-virtual conference. Please consider making a donation.