London Summit - Immersive Education

Media Grid News Immersive Education Initiative LONDON SUMMIT to Launch Series of European Events

LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM - March 06, 2009 - The Immersive Education Initiative today announced that it will launch its series of Immersive Education: Europe events in London this April. On April 23rd and 24th the London School of Economics (LSE) will host the Immersive Education Initiative's London Summit, a special two-day event showcasing new and emerging virtual worlds, learning games, educational simulations, and related tools, techniques, technologies, standards and best practices. Designed specifically for educators, researchers, and administrators, the London Summit consists of presentations, panel discussions, break-out sessions and workshops that provide attendees with an in-depth overview of immersive learning platforms and technologies such as The Education Grid, Project Wonderland, Second Life, Croquet and Cobalt, realXtend, Alice, Open Simulator (OpenSim), augmented and mixed reality, and more.

The per-seat cost of the two-day London Summit is £195 (pound sterling), or $275 USD (U.S. dollars). Seating is limited and expected to reach full capacity almost immediately after registration opens to the general public at MediaGrid.org/summit.

Preliminary speakers and panelists include faculty, researchers, and administrators from The Grid Institute, Boston College, Loyola Marymount University, M.I.T. Media Lab, The Smithsonian Institution, Sun Microsystems, University of Essex (United Kingdom), realXtend (Finland), Royal Institute of Technology (Sweden), BalticGrid (Baltic states), Holon Institute of Technology (Israel), Duke University, Montana State University, University of Central Missouri, Southeast Kansas Education Service Center at Greenbush, Boston Media High School, and more.

The London Summit is modeled after the breakthrough 2008 Boston Summit that was hosted by the Woods College of Advancing Studies at Boston College. During the 2008 Boston Summit educators, researchers, administrators and students from Boston College, Boston Public Schools, Amherst College, Federation of American Scientists, MIT Media Lab, Harvard University, Duke University, United States Department of Education, New Media Consortium (NMC), Johnson & Wales University, NASA, Sun Microsystems, Synthespian Studios, and Computerworld gave a series of presentations, panel discussions and workshops that provided an overview of how virtual worlds and game-based learning technologies are used in and out of the classroom today. Immersive Education Day at Harvard University was a precursor to the 2008 Boston Summit.

Similar to the Boston Summit, London Summit speakers and panelists feature an array of Immersive Education experts, researchers and practitioners from around the world. In addition to showcasing new and emerging immersive learning technologies a number of new Community Groups (CGs) and Technology Working Groups (TWGs) and will be launched at the London Summit including groups for: K-6 and K-12 educators and students; virtual world builders; assessment, evaluation and grading; psychology and mental health; and augmented and mixed reality.

During the London Summit status reports and demonstrations will be given by previously launched Immersive Education groups, such as the Library Technology Working Group (LIB.TWG) and Open File Formats Technology Working Group (OFF.TWG).

http://ImmersiveEducation.org