december, 2019

14dec2:00 pm2:50 pmFeaturedVirtual Reality vs Virtual Worlds SmackDown!Valerie Hill / Valibrarian Gregg & Marie Vans / amvans Lapis & Bethany Winslow2:00 pm - 2:50 pm

Event Details

This session features a lively debate on the merits of virtual worlds and virtual reality! Our first presenter, Marie Vans, argues that “VR is the future, and the future is now!” Our second presenter, Bethany Winslow, cautions that “Regardless of what VR platforms are used in the future, designers of effective immersive learning with VR must know the history of virtual worlds in education as well as have some hands-on experience in using them.”  The sparing partners will be moderated by Dr. Valerie Hill, the director of the Community Virtual Library in Second Life, Avacon, and Kitely.

Time

(Saturday) 2:00 pm - 2:50 pm

Location

OSCC Keynote Regions

Hypergrid address: http://cc.opensimulator.org:8002/

Speakers for this event

  • Bethany Winslow / Bethany Winslow

    Bethany Winslow / Bethany Winslow

    SJSU Instructional Designer

    Bethany Winslow is a volunteer with the Community Virtual Library, and an instructional designer at San Jose State University. Her areas of interest include instructional design & training, digital citizenship & literacy, the open source movement & crowd-sourced knowledge (wiki), the Creative Commons, and any other forms of radical collaboration that are disrupting traditional education and access to information. Bethany regularly attends or presents at virtual world events, but she also attends physical world conferences to promote exciting things educators are doing in-world. She finds that despite widespread excitement about virtual reality, many educators have almost no knowledge of the long history of virtual worlds in education. She believes that those who are currently engaged in virtual world exploration will be the most prepared to design effective immersive learning experiences in any of the virtual reality platforms that emerge in the future. Her personal mission is to learn more about VR and VW by doing, and to motivate others to do the same. In 2019 she presented two posters (Immersive Learning Research Network Conference and the CSU Makerspace Convening) illustrating how virtual worlds are accessible, global, environmentally sustainable digital makerspaces where educators can find a vibrant community of practice.

    URL http://www.sjsu.edu/ecampus/

    SJSU Instructional Designer

  • Marie Vans / amvans Lapis

    Marie Vans / amvans Lapis

    Research Scientist / HP Labs

    Dr. Marie Vans holds a Ph.D. in computer science and works as a Research Scientist at Hewlett-Packard. She is an author of over 50 technical papers and holder of 20 U.S. patents. Marie is currently researching virtual reality for use in education.

    Research Scientist / HP Labs

  • Valerie Hill / Valibrarian Gregg

    Valerie Hill / Valibrarian Gregg

    Director, Community Virtual Library

    Dr. Valerie Hill received her MLS from Texas Woman’s University in 2007 and a PhD in Library and Information Science in 2012. Valerie is a library and information science educator with a research focus on the intersection of information literacy and global digital participatory culture and serves as Director of the Community Virtual Library.

    URL http://valibrarian.net/

    Director, Community Virtual Library

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