Welcome to the 18th Annual Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education Conference – Transitions! The exhibit areas are open for you to explore now, and in just a few days the conference begins.

At VWBPE 2025, we will delve into the theme of Transitions. Like pivotal shifts in a story, Transitions will capture the profound changes educators and students have faced in recent years. These shifts have highlighted the ongoing need to adapt and redefine social dynamics within virtual environments as education evolves to meet new challenges. After COVID, as teacher-student relationships had to evolve, we found that we couldn’t “go back to normal” – there wasn’t a normal to go back to – so now, where do we go from here? That’s where we find ourselves in transition.

In that spirit, we’re trying something new with this year’s conference. Our educators are creative in a variety of ways, and in virtual worlds, often have to draw on that creativity and build up the environments they want to use for learning. We’d like to provide a venue for teachers to share the processes that have worked for them, and help each other develop what they need to meet their learning goals. Sometimes they have time; other times they find themselves getting very clever about putting a set together within days – or even hours!

Thursday April 3rd

We will focus on this Speed Build idea, where teams and individuals accept a curriculum challenge and build an environment where students can learn about it. Because this is new, several of Thursday’s offerings are building workshops. We encourage you to come explore. Even if you’ve never tried building before, join us to find out more! The Quadrivium session on Thursday will focus on empowering students through virtual building – there are so many applications for the things students can create in an immersive environment. Thursday also includes several social events, and a time to remember those who have passed on.

Friday April 4th

This day brings us to the official opening of the conference, with music by Ari. We’ll have a multitude of presentations to choose from, as well as our first Keynote by Phylis West Johnson, an expert on media studies and an author; she is finishing up her latest book on the Metaverse. Our Catching Up With the Lindens session features four executives from Linden Lab who will share new developments in Second Life. Friday’s Quadrivium discussion explores how information censorship is becoming more and more insidious – how can we adapt? We’ll wind up the day with a nature walk led by our resident biologist, Delia Lake, in the Social Wetlands region.

Saturday April 5th

Day 3 of the conference starts off bright and early with a Coffee Chat, before we delve into another wealth of presentation choices. Saturday brings us our second Keynote speaker, Rabindra (Robby) Ratan, who conducts social and psychological research on the effects of human-technology interaction. Our featured speaker is our 2021 Thinkerer, Lynne Berrett of Whole Brain Health. Saturday also brings us the third Quadrivium discussion, this time about artificial intelligence and what it brings to the education table. After the Closing Ceremony we’ll once again Dance the Night Away!

There are multiple choices in some time slots – you’ll want to review the conference program and plan which sessions you want to attend. Also, don’t miss the social activities, which are a wonderful way to meet like-minded people in a fun setting.

Stop by the VWBPE Gateway to pick up your Swag Bag, which includes your teleport HUD (and instructions) to help you find your way around. We can’t wait to see you at VWBPE 2025: Transitions!