Education continues to gain traction in virtual worlds, and right now, there are simply too many examples to cite in this brief article. But feedback and discussion from the recent Virtual World Expo held in New York in April had a strong impact on the festival’s organizers.
To magnify this point, Virtual World News reports that Virtual Worlds Expo 2008 will, for the first time, house an education track. This track will play alongside the consumer, enterprise, investment and strategy, virtual law, and visionary / future development streams. The conference will be held in Los Angeles Sept. 3-4.
When I first heard of the proposed Education Track at the next Virtual Worlds Expo, I thought it was a good move. But then I realized that their main focus is on businesses, and they don’t have much credibility or mind-share amongst the educators, which are an entirely different community. For starters, educators are more interested in teaching and ideas than in making money. They are also going to have a hard time getting funding to go to an expensive conference that’s mostly aimed at business uses of virtual worlds.