Big Virtual World Event on the Horizon

Here is a press release about one big virtual world event where Tony and I will be speaking about

March 4, 2010 — Pioneers in the creation of innovative uses of virtual worlds in education, training, business, military and cultural spheres will come together in Second Life® to celebrate “Imagination Around The World” (March 12-13).  The Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education Conference (VWBPE) will feature more than 150 presentations and a keynote address by Mark Kingdon, the CEO of Linden Lab® creators of Second Life® (SL).  


“From a small grass roots community, we have grown dramatically as a global organization and are becoming a force in transforming education in a very short time,” said Marlene Brooks, Program Chair (SL: Zana Kohime). “We expect more than 5,000 attendees at VWBPE10 (www.vwbpe.org) with participants from every continent,” she continued. 

Presenters at VWBPE10 are at the forefront of capitalizing on advances in new technologies and a broad range of disciplines related to virtual worlds. In addition to Linden Lab® CEO Mark Kingdon, notable keynote presentations and presenters at VWBPE10 will include: 

“Learning in 3D: A New Educational Dimension”

Karl Kapp (SL: Abbott Bundy) and Tony O’Driscoll (SL: Wada Tripp) authors of the hot-selling book Learning in 3D: Adding a New dimension to Enterprise Learning and Collaboration  

“Virtual Worlds, Culture and Change – A Conversation”
Tom Boellstorff (SL: Tom Bukowski) academic, author and editor-in-chief of American Anthropologist and Doug Thompson the (SL: Dusan Writer) CEO of Remedy Communications and owner of Metanomics. 

“The Rise of Avatars in Social Networks for Military Learning Innovations”

Andy Sticker and Marlene Brooks (moderator).   Presentations will showcase what is being done in virtual worlds at universities, colleges, businesses, government agencies, not-for-profit entities and K-12 classrooms. More than one hundred volunteers will assist presenters and attendees at the 48-Hour conference taking place in over twenty SL Sims. The Presentations will be available in five languages: English, German, French, Spanish and Portuguese.  

“What makes this year exciting is that we are becoming more interactive and mainstream, and we are having a growing impact on all forms of education and training based on the values of connection, collaboration and co-creation integral to virtual world learning environments,” said, Kevin Feenan (SL: Phelan Corrimal). 

The Virtual World Best Practices in Education Conference originated from the 2007 Second Life® Best Practices in Education Conference. Educators are one of the largest and most vibrant groups in SL with an outreach to more than 6,000 residents. 
Registration for the conference is Free. To register please visit: www.vwbpe.org  


About Second Life 
Developed and launched by Linden Lab in 2003, Second Life is the world’s leading 3D virtual world environment. It enables its Residents to create content, interact with others, launch businesses, collaborate, educate, and more. Since its inception, Second Life Residents have logged more than one billion user hours and generated more than $1 billion in user-to-user transactions. With a broad user base that includes everyone from consumers and educators to medical researchers and large enterprises, Second Life has become one of the largest repositories of user-generated content and the largest user-generated virtual goods economy in the world.

For additional information, please contact:
E-mail: Marty Keltz: [email protected]
Phone: 416-587-3381
For information on Second Life, visit: www.secondlife.com
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