Immersive Education Degree

August 22, 2009 3:37 PM

Greetings! Would anyone here have any information about obtaining a masters or PhD in immersive education? I have a Masters in Education, but I would like to focus on the educational possibilities of 3D virtual worlds like Second Life, Reaction Grid and Wonderland. I believe these environments have astounding potential. If not a degree then perhaps some best practices ideas... thanks so much!

I have a couple of years of experience within the VR game Second Life, and a bit in Reaction Grid, but I would like to delve more into the educational aspects of this. I am a member of Immersive Education Grid (http://immersiveeducation.org/).

posted by ConnieL to education (5 comments total)

You could contact people at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Specifically, James Gee, Kurt Squire, Constance Steinkeuhler. They have the GLS (Games, Learning and Society) group and conference there.
posted by oflinkey at 4:07 PM on August 22

James Gee is currently teaching/doing research at Arizona State University's Marylou Fulton College of Education. One of my friends is advised by him, and working on "Our Courts," an educational game about the U.S. judicial system. I'm not sure if Gee is doing any work in Virtual Worlds at the moment, but he's one of the major figures in education/gaming, and I'm told he's amazing to work with. Several other people I know over in education are doing research on mixed-reality environments for K-12, too. Might be worth a look, at least.
posted by Alterscape at 4:29 PM on August 22

(whoops, forgot to say, the program at ASU is called Educational Technology).
posted by Alterscape at 4:30 PM on August 22

There's some interesting work being done in synthetic biology, an outline of the project I'm most familiar with is here. It enables students to eliminate so many of the stumbling blocks research universities have in experiential/inquiry based learning. Worth a look.
posted by variella at 5:28 PM on August 22

Google Mark Bell IUB and Bola King UCSB.
Also look into AOIR - I'd even recommend sending this question to AOIR's email list.

Sorry for lack of links - on phone.
posted by k8t at 5:45 PM on August 22