Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education March 2023 - A Brief Look

Exploring one of the biomes.

Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education Conference for 2023 was a meeting of educators and others interested in the best use of virtual reality in education. 

The main conference was in Second Life, but there were also presentations in places like VR Chat, OSGrid, and Mozilla Hubs. Presenters were from around the world.

This year the virtual venue in Second Life was on regions which had been terraformed and landscaped to represent different biomes.

Most of the presenters stuck to the tried and true "OK, we're here in virtual reality, so sit down in a virtual seat and watch my virtual slideshow/video while I chat or text..." approach. The amazing thing was that people from all over were sharing a virtual space.

There were  many different exhibits in addition to the lectures. 

Roleplaying can be important in gamification of education.

From Metaverse School Suluh Bangsa Mulia - A down-to-earth exhibit using NPC models, posters, and animations. 

Other blogs went into more depth:

Inara Pey on Linden Lab's presentation. 

Second Life Newser

Austin Tate's Blog

and now for something not related to VWBPE:

Some thoughts on virtual reality and education: There are many different ways of using virtual reality in education. I especially enjoyed trying out Minecraft for Education's "Hour of Code" module demo. I recommend giving it a try. Learning really can be fun. 

Screenshot from YouTube "Hour of Code" preview.