2014 EDU: VIRTUAL: Education communities in virtual worlds expand into social media

Education communities in Virtual Worlds 
expand into social media
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Some selected immersive education groups in Google+, Facebook, and LinkedIn.  These are the ones I found that seemed to have visibility, membership (with people I knew), and focus on virtual worlds.   
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In the past, Second Life was the only virtual world with widespread interest.  The educational community could live entirely within Second Life.   Not any more.   Opensim has grown to host many education communities in many grids.  What these communities have in common is not location in a particular grid, but an interest in immersive education.  These communities are now growing expanded contacts through social media.  

These social media connections are serving the same functions as educational groups used to serve in Second Life.   But they support multi-grid communities that connect people who share interests, without regard to the grid they are using.  That arrangement works especially well with Hypergrid, which supports travel from grid to grid. 

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Here are some of the immersive education communities I found in social media.   Feel free to mention others in the comments section; I expect update the main post later to add suggested groups to this list.

Counts are as of about Jan 1, 2014 or later
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Virtual PioneersISTE Virtual Environments Network (formerly SIGVE)VSTE VE PLN
Google+

• VWER Google+ Community  50 members
• VWBPE Google+ Community  128 members
• Virtual Educators 134 members
• Non-Profit Commons in Second Life  218 members
• Gamification in Education  2174 members 
• Virtual Pioneers   46 members
• ISTE Virtual Environments Network (formerly SIGVE)  287 members
• VSTE VE PLN  115 members

Facebook groups (selected)

• Second Life for Educators  3758 members
• Virtual Worlds - Best Practices in Education 1472 members
• Virtual Worlds Education Roundtable  1071 members
• Disruptive Education   841 members
• Educational Conference Directory  279 members
• Educational Entrepreneurship  141 members  
• Education Inclusion in Immersive Worlds  683 members
• Immersive World Education Grid  104 Members
• Virtual World Educators  303 members

LinkedIn Groups

• NSF Media & Informal Science Learning  2142 members
• Immersive Education  13 members
• Rockcliffe University Consortium  21 members
• E-Learning 24/7  1907 members 

Related

• Top five Social Media sites to promote your virtual world projects

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