I’m not sure how I missed it, but the Immersive Learning Research Network is among the many organizations that have decided to completely move their real-world conference this year into virtual reality (here’s the press release):
In light of the COVID-19 outbreak, the Immersive Learning Research Network (iLRN) has made the decision to host its IEEE technically co-sponsored annual conference for 2020 fully online and in virtual reality (VR), supported by a number of other software platforms. iLRN will offer this conference, now in its sixth year, in conjunction with Educators in VR, the organizers of the highly successful Educators in VR International Summit that was held in VR in February of this year, which included over 170 speakers and attracted over 6,000 event attendees.
The iLRN Annual Conference is the premier scholarly event focusing on advances in the use of VR as well as augmented reality (AR), mixed reality (MR), and other extended reality (XR) technologies to support learners across the full span of learning—from K-12 through higher education to work-based, informal, and lifelong learning contexts. iLRN 2020 had been slated to take place at the California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly) in San Luis Obispo, California, USA from June 21 to 25. The conference dates remain the same despite the shift to the virtual format, though the deadline has been extended for work-in-progress academic papers as well as for practitioner presentations, workshops, panels, and special sessions to April 19, 2020.
And, as Educators in VR reminds us in this tweet, early-bird registration for students, faculty, teachers, and educational administrators is free! But you have to register by April 19th, 2020. Here’s the form to get your free tickets via EventBrite (please note that you must use an email address associated with your educational institution to take advantage of this offer).
Many social VR platforms and virtual worlds are currently trying to woo business users who are unexpectedly forced to shift to support remote workers in the face of an unprecedented coronavirus pandemic.
Today, Linden Lab’s virtual world, Second Life, announced:
We’ve been getting a lot of questions lately about how Second Life can help organizations, events, and conferences continue to safely and efficiently operate during the coronavirus outbreak.
Many individuals and organizations are being affected by this unprecedented public health crisis, and we recognize that Second Life can provide an important and valuable way for people to stay in touch with their friends and co-workers amidst new social distancing protocols, mandated remote work requirements, and other precautionary measures.
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One of the first things we’ve implemented to help is a reduction in pricing to a flat $99/month per region to qualified accredited nonprofit or educational institutions. Effective immediately, this limited-time price reduction is applicable to any new or added regions including renewals of existing regions.
Linden Lab has also announced that they are expanding their Second Life support, although no exact details were given in the blogpost.
I think that this is quite a savvy move for Linden Lab to make, and the lowered sim costs might just entice a few non-profit and educational institutions to take a second look at Second Life. (I hope that they keep Sansar alive, for many of the same reasons. I now wonder what would have happened if Linden Lab had decided to keep Sansar going for just another six months or a year. A coronavirus-based boost might have kept the project going. Of course, we’ll never know for sure…)
This scanning electron microscope image shows SARS-CoV-2 (orange)—also known as 2019-nCoV, the virus that causes COVID-19—isolated from a patient in the U.S., emerging from the surface of cells (green) cultured in the lab. Credit: NIAID-RML
I decided it was time for a quick update on the SARS-CoV-2 virus outbreak. (The Wuhan coronavirus had an interim name of 2019-nCoV, but it is now known officially by scientific researchers as SARS-CoV-2, and the disease it causes is now referred to as COVID-19.)
In the past few days, there have been various worrying reports of human-to-human transmission of the virus in countries outside of China: Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, and, for the first time, Iran. It would appear that despite our best containment efforts, the virus, which seems to be as easily transmissible as regular seasonal influenza, is slowly spreading worldwide. Scientists are studying these outbreaks outside China in an effort to better understand the virus.
Welcome to this Science Matters on the Novel Coronavirus (COVID19) – a free course to learn about the science underpinning the outbreak response.
On January 30th, the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared an outbreak of the Novel Coronavirus, now officially referred to as COVID19.
As the epidemic seems to spread to more and more countries, people around the world are wondering about the trajectory of the epidemic and whether they should be concerned. Media reports of the epidemic often focus on the more eye-catching events: governments evacuating their citizens from Hubei province, passengers on cruise ships being stopped from disembarking following a detection of a case, or images of supermarket supplies running out in areas perceived to be at high risk. On social media, other reports about the epidemic range from unsupported rumours to deliberate disinformation are increasing a sense of panic many individuals are experiencing. Robust, reliable analysis is vital at this stage not only as a way to give concerned members of the public a sense of perspective, but also to support governments and other stakeholders in planning their responses.
Researchers at the MRC Centre of Global Infectious Diseases Analysis (GIDA) and the Jameel Institute for Disease Emergency Analytics (J-IDEA) have been working hard on coming up with reliable estimates of the spread of the epidemic and its prospects, and are doing this in close collaboration with a number of global stakeholders, including the World Health Organisation (WHO).
You will hear directly from the experts conducting the analyses. You will be able learn about the current state of the epidemic, while also learn about the epidemiological and public-health principles and challenges that underpin these analyses. This will include understanding how the spread of the epidemic is modelled, how transmissibility of infections is estimated, what the challenges are in estimating the case fatality ratio, and also learning about the importance of community involvement in responding to the epidemic.
Today I finished the first two weeks of the online course, and I can recommend it very highly! You do not need to have a science background in order to understand the concepts, which are clearly explained.
Good Sources of Information on SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19
Here is my updated list of good, credible, authoritative resources to learn more about the Wuhan coronoavirus (formerly called 2019-nCoV and now officially called SARS-CoV-2; the disease the virus causes is now called COVID-19):
Another instructive YouTuber to watch is Dr. John Campbell, a British nurse educator who very clearly explains what you need to know
If you prefer to get your informtion via audio, the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) has started a weekly half-hour podcast on SoundCloud, called COVID-19: What’s Happening Now.
Acadicus is a social VR platform for educational purposes, created by a Wisconsin-based company called Arch Virtual. The platform is similar in scope and aim to other educational social VR products such as ENGAGE.
As new research continues to demonstrate the effectiveness of VR training and more people have an opportunity to experience it, there’s steadily increasing demand for quality VR training and education content.
However, the complexity, expense and time required to develop quality VR training has become a massive bottleneck to adoption. One-size-fits all applications are inflexible, expensive to keep updated, and only cover a fraction of topics. Every region, institution, and individual does things a little differently, and these differences are important to them.
We created Acadicus to revolutionize the process of accessing and creating VR training experiences at a fraction of the cost, enabling broadband knowledge transfer from the mind of an expert into the immersive experience of a learner in VR.
You can download a copy of the Acadicus client software for Oculus Rift VR headsets from their website for free, and use it to explore their featured content, offering everything from pediatric surgery roleplay to Blackhawk helicopter training!
Acadicus offers a Pro Space service, which they describe as follows:
Acadicus Pro Spaces include everything needed to create, customize, and host simulations and multi-user demonstrations. Gain access to our large and growing library of assets and environments you can use to create and save your scene. Acadicus is currently compatible with Oculus Rift and Oculus Rift S.
Acadicus Pro Spaces are a US$10,000 per year subscription, with multi-space discounts available.
