LIS SIM People

• Serious Games Initiative

"The Serious Games Initiative is focused on uses for games in exploring management and leadership challenges facing the public sector. Part of its overall charter is to help forge productive links between the electronic game industry and projects involving the use of games in education, training, health, and public policy." http://www.seriousgames.org/index2.html

• Educators Coop

"The spirit of our vision for the Educators Coop Residential Community is to provide eligible educators and researchers with a simple and easy way to feel at home in an SL community and to begin exploring, collaborating, teaching, and conducting research in Second Life more easily and seamlessly.

The heart of our effort is building a real community that provides educators with a unique cooperative residential environment in SL offering opportunities for creating meaningful new relationships and collaborations. Residents enjoy these benefits and share in the responsibility for cultivating and supporting a community spirit."

http://www.educatorscoop.org./

• Immersive Education

"The Immersive Education Initiative is an international collaboration of universities, colleges, research institutes, consortia and companies that are working together to define and develop open standards, best practices, platforms, and communities of support for virtual reality and game-based learning and training systems."

http://immersiveeducation.org/

Aaron Walsh
Director of the Grid Institute, the organization responsible for the development of Immersive Education. http://gridinstitute.com/people/aew/

An interview conducted with Walsh from Terra Nova
http://terranova.blogs.com/terra_nova/2007/05/teaching_in_vr_.html#more

• Virtual Worlds at Seton Hall

Information about how the Teaching, Learning and Technology Center at Seton Hall University is currently exploring the potential of virtual spaces in the high school and college classroom.
http://tltc.shu.edu/virtualworlds/index.html

• Ed Lamoureux

"In Second Life Ed Lamoureux is Professor Beliveau. An undergraduate course, "Field Research Methods in Second Life" ran during the January, 07 winter interim for 5 Bradley University Multimedia majors. Two new courses have been developed and are available to interested undergraduates, by application: "Introduction to Field Research in Virtual Worlds" (Fall, 2007 and January 08 and May 08, 3 week Interims) and "Field Research in Virtual Worlds" (spring, 2008 and subsequent spring terms)."
http://slane.bradley.edu/com/faculty/lamoureux/website2/slstuff.html

• League of Worlds

LoW’s mission is "to stimulate and disseminate research, analysis, theory, technical and curricular developments in the creative, educational, training-based and social use of role-playing, simulations and virtual worlds; and to contribute towards the development of coherent frameworks for their advancement, application and assessment."
http://www.leagueofworlds.com/

• The Learning in Informal and Formal Environments (LIFE) Center - National Science Foundation

"The Learning in Informal and Formal Environments (LIFE) Center was one of the first four Science of Learning Centers to be funded in the Fall of 2004. LIFE is a an interdisciplinary collaboration between learning scientists at the University of Washington, Stanford University, SRI International, and other institutions across the country."
http://life-slc.org/

• Michigan State University Games for Entertainment and Learning Lab

"The mission of the Games for Entertainment and Learning (GEL) Lab at Michigan State University is to design innovative prototypes, techniques, and complete games for entertainment and learning and to advance state of the art knowledge about social and individual effects of digital games."
http://gel.msu.edu/index.html

• EduIsland

"EduIsland is a collaborative group of educators, universities, non-profits, and individuals who seek to advance the use of Second Life for educational purposes. Its members have agreed to share resources and common spaces, pool knowledge, and give members of our respective communities opportunities to work together on group projects."
http://www.eduisland.net/

• Appalachian State University - Reich College of Education

Developed AET Zone, "a multi-user virtual environment created by the faculty in the Instructional Technology program at Appalachian State University. AET Zone is our "campus" for online learning, constructed to support the social constructivist learning experiences we provide our students in our courses and our program."
http://www.lesn.appstate.edu/aetz/description.htm

• University of Central Florida Institute for Simulation and Training

" IST is an internationally recognized research institute that focuses on advancing modeling and simulation technology and increasing our understanding of simulation's role in training and education."
http://www.ist.ucf.edu/

• Interactive Realities Lab - University of Central Florida

"The Interactive Realities Laboratory is a research laboratory within the Institute for Simulation and Training at the University of Central Florida, focused on performing interdisciplinary basic and applied research in dynamic, interactive and collaborative environments."
http://www.irl.ist.ucf.edu/

• Games, Learning, and Society

"The Games, Learning, and Society group is a collection of academic researchers, interactive media (or game) developers, and government and industry leaders who investigate how this medium operates, how it can be used to transform how we learn, and what this means for society. As such we seek to understand what cognitive work goes into playing Zelda, World of Warcraft, or Civilization, how these design features might be leveraged to improve learning via the design of learning systems, and how organizations such as schools will need to respond."
http://www.gameslearningsociety.org/

• SimuLearn

"SimuLearn was started because a small group of founders recognized that the needs to drive down costs and accessibility of training was being met with training that was less efficacious.

SimuLearn's determination was to learn from other industries experience and derive not only the benefits of self-pace, distance learning but also to improve the efficacy of the training it replaced

Recognized by American Society of Training and Development's magazine as the Best Product of the Year, SimuLearn's venture has expanded to a global initiative to deliver superlative benefits."

http://www.simulearn.net/leadership_training/leadership_training.html

• The Society for the Advancement of Games and Simulations in Education and Training

Formed in 1970, SAGSET is a voluntary professional society dedicated to improving the effectiveness and quality of learning through the use of interactive learning, role-play, simulation and gaming. SAGSET encourages and supports the development of gaming, simulation and other forms of active learning in all aspects of education and training from Primary School to University and in all levels of adult, lifelong learning from shop floor to the board room.
http://www.simulations.co.uk/sagset/

• The New Media Consortium (NMC)

"The New Media Consortium (NMC) is an international 501(c)3 not-for-profit consortium of nearly 250 learning-focused organizations dedicated to the exploration and use of new media and new technologies."
http://www.nmc.org/

• North American Simulation and Gaming Association (NASAGA)

A network of professionals working on the design, implementation, and evaluation of games and simulations to improve learning results in all types of organizations.
http://www.nasaga.org/

• TPLD

"TPLD is one of the global leaders in the emerging Serious Games market. We are focused on delivering Games-Based Learning (GBL) solutions and technologies to aid organisations in their drive for competitive advantage. Our software products and industry solutions help customers and partners create an effective, experiential and high-impact approach to professional and personal development. Using specifically designed technology for GBL, we offer stand-alone "off the shelf" products aimed at education and organisational development, with a particular focus on multi-player environments and user assessment."
http://www.tpld.net/main.php?page=1007

• VITAL Lab - Ohio University

"The VITAL Lab excels in research and development in Second Life and other 3-D online virtual environments. We provide service in scripting, content creation, full-service sim development, creation of teaching tools and learning aids, coordination of educational and other events and activities, and operational management of sims in Second Life."
http://vital.cs.ohiou.edu/vitalwiki/index.php/Second_Life_Development