Uncommon Realities: The 16th Annual Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education (VWBPE 2023) Conference Takes Place in Second Life, March 23rd to 25th, 2023

The theme of VWBPE 2023 conference is Uncommon Realities

Once again this March, the Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education conference (VWBPE for short) will take place in Second Life, running from March 23rd to 25th, 2023. According to the EventBrite description of the conference:

This year, we celebrate Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education’s 16th Annual International Conference on Education in Virtual and Augmented Reality. The main conference takes place March 23-25, 2023, with immersive experiences happening two weeks before and after the main event.

Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education is a global grassroots community event focusing on education in immersive virtual environments. This open conference is organized by the education community to provide an opportunity to showcase the learning that takes place using virtual and augmented environments. Educators and content creators alike are encouraged to attend, present, and take part in this discussion of collaborative deeper learning and co-presence in virtual worlds and games.

To the best ability possible, VWBPE provides educational and networking opportunities that are relevant to educational curriculum development utilizing virtual environments and “best practices”.

These include

  • helping to build community through extension of learning best practices to practical application of those ideas and techniques;
  • providing networking opportunities for educators and the communities that help support education; and
  • providing access to current innovations, trends, ideas, case studies, and other best practices for educators and the communities that help support education.

Over 1,200 people from 30 countries attended our last conference in March 2022. In just the past several years, over 200 hours of video footage has been captured and has been made available free to the academic community in addition to other video broadcasts, with thousands of views.

Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education is a meaningful way for presenters to share their research and experience about the rich learning systems in virtual worlds and games. This free online conference is produced entirely by volunteers.

According to their mission statement, taken from the VWBPE website:

This open conference is organized by the Second Life community to provide an opportunity to showcase the learning that takes place using virtual worlds. Everyone is encouraged to present, attend and take part in this discussion of collaborative deeper learning and co-presence in virtual worlds and games…

Over 2,000 attendees representing 90 countries participate in 150-200 online presentations including theoretical research, application of best practices, virtual world tours, hands-on workshops, discussion panels, machinima presentations, and poster exhibits. You do not have to be a formal academic to participate.

While the VWBPE conference proceedings are apparently published as the Journal of Virtual Studies published by Rockcliffe University Consortium, my Firefox web browser threw up a security warning when I tried to access the journal’s webpage:

Indeed, Rockcliffe University Consortium (a gold-level sponsor of VWBPE, and a primary organizer of the conference) is a “university” which, as far as I am aware, exists only within the virtual world of Second Life, as opposed to an accredited, real-world university. According to their website:

Rockcliffe is a registered non-profit C-Corp in the United States, however we are not a 501(c)3. Structurally, we are organized along the lines of a B-Corp. The organization is made up completely of volunteers. The entire organization is a collection of global SOHO [small office/home office] locations tied together through a common technical infrastructure that serves as a proxy for a brick and mortar location. While the majority of our volunteers are from the United States, Rockcliffe also [has] volunteers based in Canada, the United Kingdom, France, and Australia.

While those who seek the reassurance of academic rigour and scholarly structure might turn up their noses at a self-proclaimed Second Life “university” with a glitchy journal website, I would remind you that the current organization also embraces those virtual world educators and researchers who might otherwise feel excluded from a professional, academic conference. And I can attest that I have attended some truly excellent presentations at previous VWBPE conferences over the past 15 years, such as this 2021 talk by Dr. Marie Vans about social VR.

So I would encourage you, who perhaps might never have heard of the Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education conference before, to consider attending this year. The final conference agenda has not been published yet, but you can already register for free for VWBPE 2023 via EventBrite. VWBPE 2023 organizers are also looking for volunteers (more information and a volunteer sign-up form are here).

You can visit the VWBPE website for more information. If you need to set up a Second Life avatar to attend VWBPE 2023, just visit the Second Life website and click on either of the places indicated by the red arrows (or just go here):

Setting up a Second Life avatar/account is easy

And if you should need a little help getting your Second Life avatar looking presentable and fashionable while spending as few Linden dollars as possible, well, Auntie Ryan has got you covered. 😉

See you at VWBPE 2023!

The 15th Annual Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education (VWBPE) Conference in Second Life, March 31st to April 2nd, 2022

This is just a brief blogpost to remind you that the 15th Annual Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education (VWBPE) Conference is taking place in Second Life from March 31st to April 2nd, 2022. SL blogger Inara Pey writes:

The 2022 Virtual Worlds Best Practice in Education (VWBPE) conference will be taking place between March 31st and April 2nd inclusive, and both a call for proposals and a call for volunteers to help run things has been issued…

VWBPE is a global grass-roots community event focusing on education in immersive virtual environments which attracts over 2,000  educational professionals from around the world each year, who participate in 150-200 online presentations including theoretical research, application of best practices, virtual world tours, hands-on workshops, discussion panels, machinima presentations, and poster exhibits.

In the context of the conference, a “virtual world” is an on-line community through which users can interact with one another and use and create ideas irrespective of time and space. As such, typical examples include Second Life, OpenSimulator, Unity, World of Warcraft, Eve Online, and so on, as well as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest or any virtual environments characterized by an open social presence and in which the direction of the platform’s evolution is manifest in the community.

For more information, please see the VWBPE website. If you wish to volunteer at the conference, please visit this information page and volunteer sign-up form.

See you there!

Dr. Marie Vans: 14 Reasons Why Virtual Worlds Are Still Better than Social VR Worlds for Educational Purposes

PLEASE NOTE: My blog is still on indefinite hiatus; I have made a single exception for this blogpost. After this, I will be going back on my self-imposed break from blogging.


Dr, Marie Vans (known as Amvans Lapis in Second Life) is a Senior Research Scientist at HP Labs in Colorado, who gave the following provocatively-titled presentation on March 19th, 2021 at the Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education (VWBPE) 2021 Conference, held in SL:

Title Slide from Dr. Vans’ VWBPE Presentaion

14 Reasons Why Virtual Worlds are still better than Social VR Worlds

A year ago, VCARA started the VR Exploder’s Club wherein educators meet up once a month to determine whether and/or which Social VR Worlds we should establish a presence thereon after exploring different platforms together. Whether we used VR headsets or desktop versions of these platforms, we looked at criteria such as learning curve, real-time communication, interaction capabilities, and more. I will describe specific issues that have been resolved in VWs that still need attention in VR.

Drawing upon a number of representative social VR platforms chosen from my November 2019 spreadsheet (which I need to update!), she gave a great presentation on why she thinks that social VR platforms need to pull up their socks when it comes to supporting education, and why these newer platforms should not be so quick to dismiss older virtual world platforms such as Second Life!

Because the following YouTube video of Dr. Marie Vans’ presentation has a absolutely criminally low 56 views thus far, I have decided to write up a blogpost about it! And here it is! (I am going back on hiatus again after this.)

Here is the video of Dr. Vans’ hour-long VWBPE presentation, followed by a question and answer session with the audience. It’s well worth watching the entire thing!

Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education Conference March 15-17

This year’s theme of the annual Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education conference is VRevolutions. The VWBPE conference is free to attend and all events are held in Second Life.

VWBPE18MainLogo960

Now in its 11th year, the conference brings together participants from a variety of social VR spaces and virtual worlds to discuss educational applications of the technology. The keynote speakers this year are the Technology-Enhanced Learning designer for U.K.’s Open University, Dr. Mark Childs, and education futurist Bryan Alexander.

Of note in the conference calendar is a conversation with Linden Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg, to be held March 15th at 1:00 p.m. Pacific Time/SL Time.