2011-10: REGISTRATION OPENS for 1st EUROPEAN IMMERSIVE EDUCATION SUMMIT
Early registration for the 1st European Immersive Education Summit (iED Summit) is now open. Universidad Carlos III de Madrid will host the two-day iED Summit from 28th to 29th November 2011 in Madrid, Spain. Organized specifically for educators, researchers, and administrators, the European iED Summit consists of presentations, papers and demonstrations that provide attendees with an in-depth overview of immersive learning technologies, platforms and techniques. The European iED Summit is open to the global academic community and experts in immersion, virtual reality and mixed/augmented reality.

2011-10: IMMERSIVE EDUCATION & Internet2 K20 INITIATIVE ANNOUNCE FORMAL COLLABORATION
The Immersive Education Initiative (iED) today announced a formal collaboration with the Internet2 K20 Initiative, an activity within the Internet2 advanced networking consortium led by the U.S. research and education community. The collaboration, announced today by iED Director Aaron E. Walsh during the Fall 2011 Internet2 Member Meeting, establishes three initial areas of engagement between the two organizations.

2011-09: NEW WEEKLY IMMERSIVE TOURS, TUTORIALS & SNEEK PEEKS
The Immersive Education Initiative's K-12 Technology Working Group (K12.TWG) has issued an open invitation to all iED members to attend any of the group's weekly virtual meetings starting in October (every Wednesday at 6:30 PM Eastern Time Zone USA). The first four immersive learning environments to be presented and toured are: Crime Scene Investigation (CSI) Lab, Rocket World Earth, Moon, Mars and Stars (EMMS), NASA Moonbase Alpha, and Scratch.

2011-09: 3rd ANNUAL OREGON IMMERSIVE EDUCATION DAYS (OiED)
The Oregon Chapter of Immersive Education (iED Oregon) has announced that the 3rd Annual Oregon iED Days (OiED) will run October 20-22. OiED will be held at Oregon State University and will feature projects hosted by virtual learning leaders from institutions of higher education, non-profit organizations, and other agencies statewide. The Oregon Immersive Education Days presentations and activities will all be open to the public and free to attend for those registered. Educators, researchers and administrators will give a series of live and virtual presentations, providing attendees with an overview of Immersive Education and how virtual worlds and game-based learning technologies are used in and out of the classroom today.

2011-07: CALL FOR PAPERS, POSTERS AND PRESENTATIONS: 1st European iED Summit
The Immersive Education Initiative has issued an open call for the first European Immersive Education Summit (iED Summit). Universidad Carlos III de Madrid will host the two-day iED Summit from 28th to 29th November 2011 in Madrid, Spain. The European iED Summit is organized by the newly formed European Chapter of the Immersive Education Initiative (iED Europe) and builds on the success of previous iED Summits. The call for papers, posters, and presentations is open to the global academic community and experts in immersion, virtual reality and mixed/augmented reality.

2011-05: European Chapter of Immersive Education Initiative Launched at iED 2011
During his opening statements at iED 2011 earlier this month, Aaron E. Walsh, Director of the Immersive Education Initiative, announced the creation of a new European Chapter and Board of Governors. Chapters, such as iED Europe, constitute the geographically distributed structure of the Initiative through which regional and local members are supported and enriched. Chapters organize officially sanctioned iED Summits, workshops, collaborations, seminars, lectures, forums, meetings, technical groups, technical work items, research, and related activities.

2011-04: iED 2011 Keynote -- NASA Learning Technologies
NASA Learning Technologies will be the opening keynote at the Immersive Education 2011 Boston Summit (iED 2011). The keynote address examines the current and rapid transition from "virtual" to "immersive" education. At iED 2011 NASA's Moonbase Alpha will officially become a Rocket World learning module. Rocket World, launched by the Initiative on the 40th anniversary of the first moonwalk, is a comprehensive immersive learning framework and core immersive STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) curricula designed to inspire and educate a new generation of scientists, engineers and researchers through the novel application of next-generation learning technology.

2011-03: Immersive Education 2011 Summit (iED 2011) Announced
The Immersive Education Initiative has opened registration for iED SUMMIT 2011 ("iED 2011"). Boston College will host the three-day Summit from May 13-15. Speakers at past iED Summits have included faculty, researchers, and administrators from Grid Institute, Boston College, Harvard University, MIT, Stanford, Loyola, The Smithsonian, U.S. Department of Education, NASA, Federation of American Scientists (FAS), Duke University, Temple University, Southeast Kansas Education Service Center, Cornell University, Amherst College, Boston Library Consortium, South Park Elementary School, Boston Media High School, Turner Broadcasting, Open Wonderland Foundation, realXtend (Finland), The MOFET Institute (Israel), University of Aizu (Japan), Keio University (Japan), National University of Singapore, Royal Institute of Technology (Sweden), University of Essex (UK), Coventry University (UK), Giunti Labs (Italy) and European Learning Industry Group, Open University (UK), and more.

2011-02: K-12 Group Announced by Immersive Education Initiative
The Immersive Education Initiative today announced that it will officially launch its K-12 Technology Working Group (K12.TWG) on February 24th. The K-12 group will launch with live events in Colorado and Kansas, followed by virtual launch events on The Education Grid in early March. The Initiative's K-12 Technology Working Group is chartered to define, evolve and maintain a range of immersive learning experiences (virtual worlds, learning games, simulators and mixed/augmented learning experiences), best practices, guides, tutorials and communities of support for primary and secondary education.

2011-01: Immersive Education 2010 In Review
The Immersive Education Initiative today released a summary of the year 2010 in review, organized into three categories: 1) Notable Events and Activities, 2) Notable "Inside Scoop" Twitter items, and 3) Notable iED Member Discussions. The Initiative's year in review is a summary of annual progress made by the non-profit 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. Thousands of faculty, teachers, researchers, staff, administrators and students are members of the Immersive Education Initiative.

2010-11: "Create Once, Experience Everywhere"™ 3D/VR Format Unveiled for Immersive Education
The Immersive Education Initiative today unveiled iED 3D/VR™, the open and royalty-free cross-platform 3D/VR mesh file format that enables 3D and virtual reality (3D/VR) content to be created once and experienced across a range of virtual worlds, games, simulators and mixed/augmented reality applications.

2010-10: iED 2011 EARLY REGISTRATION OPENS for Immersive Education Initiative 2011 iED Summit
The Immersive Education Initiative today opened early registration for iED SUMMIT 2011 ("iED 2011"). Boston College will host the three-day iED Summit from May 13-15 through special arrangement with the Woods College of Advancing Studies at Boston College. Early registration, and associated individual and group discounts, will close this December.

2010-10: CALL FOR PAPERS AND PRESENTATIONS for Immersive Education Initiative 2011 iED Summit
The Immersive Education Initiative today issued an open call for iED Summit 2011 papers, posters, workshops, panels, general presentations, demos, and outliers (novel late-breaking research and technology). Boston College will host the three-day iED Summit from May 13-15 through special arrangement with the Woods College of Advancing Studies at Boston College.

2010-06: Immersive Education Initiative Issues Call For Psychologically Beneficial Immersive Environments.
The Immersive Education Initiative's Psychology of Immersive Environments Technology Working Group (PIE.TWG) today issued an open call for psychologically beneficial immersive environments. The results of this call and related PIE.TWG activities will establish a searchable repository of psychologically beneficial virtual worlds, simulations, video games, mixed/augmented reality applications in addition to leading papers, case studies, and research in the field.

2010-05: Outcomes Of 2010 Boston Summit Posted By Immersive Education Initiative.
The Immersive Education Initiative today posted outcomes of the 2010 Boston Summit that convened April 23-25 at Boston College through special arrangement with the Woods College of Advancing Studies. Organized specifically for educators, researchers, and administrators, the three-day conference consisted of presentations, panel discussions, break-out sessions and workshops to provide attendees with an in-depth overview of immersive learning platforms and technologies.

2010-04: Immersive Education Initiative Issues Call For Expert Legal Opinions On Second Life.
The Immersive Education Initiative today issued an open call for expert legal opinions on content ownership, terms of service, and potential legal liabilities for teaching in the virtual world of Second Life. The Initiative issued its call to the international legal community in response to new Second Life terms of service that went into effect today and a growing concern for legal liabilities for educators and schools that require students to enter and reside in a public virtual world populated with anonymous users and potentially offensive content.

2010-04: Boston College Advancing Studies Undergraduate Course Catalog Goes Immersive.
During his opening address at the Immersive Education 2010 Summit, James A. Woods, Dean of Boston College's Woods College of Advancing Studies, today announced that the college's undergraduate courses will be offered as fully immersive distance learning classes through the Immersive Education Initiative. Starting with 4 classes this fall, the entire Woods College of Advancing Studies course catalog is expected to become fully immersive over the next five years. Standard Boston College credit is issued for immersive Advancing Studies courses, with no distinction made between the amount or form of credit given for traditional in-person classes. Students enrolled in immersive classes attend entirely within an online immersive learning environment, using open and freely available technologies endorsed by the Initiative, and may therefore reside anywhere in the world.

2010-03: BOSTON SUMMIT EXCLUSIVE: Attendees To Receive $2,500 In Permanent Virtual World Land.
The Immersive Education Initiative today announced that it will provide permanent virtual world land for one year to every school and non-profit organization that has at least one teacher, administrator or student in attendance at the 2010 Boston Summit this April. The land, a full region of space measuring 256x256 meters in size (65,536 square meters), would cost nearly $2,500 in Second Life at the normal educational rate ($700 plus $1770 in annual maintenance fees). The free land can be renewed each year, also free of charge, by simply attending any Immersive Education Initiative Summit.

2010-03: BOSTON SUMMIT EXCLUSIVE: ROCKET WORLD TO BE FREELY AVAILABLE.
The Immersive Education Initiative today announced that all software and virtual worlds that comprise Rocket World will be distributed freely at the Immersive Education 2010 Summit at Boston College April 23-25. Hands-on workshops at the Summit will provide attendees with instruction on how to: 1) INSTALL ROCKET WORLD AND OTHER VIRTUAL WORLDS "BEHIND THE FIREWALL" ON SCHOOL NETWORKS FOR PRIVATE, SECURE AND COST-FREE IMMERSIVE LEARNING EXPERIENCES, 2) ACCESS AND TEACH USING FREELY AVAILABLE INSTANCES OF ROCKET WORLD ALREADY INSTALLED ON THE EDUCATION GRID, and 3) COPY OR MOVE ANY SECOND LIFE ISLANDS, REGIONS, PARCELS AND OBJECTS THAT THEY OWN ONTO PRIVATE, SECURE AND FREELY AVAILABLE OPEN SOURCE VIRTUAL WORLD SERVERS THAT ARE OWNED AND OPERATED ENTIRELY BY THEIR SCHOOL. Summit attendees will also receive permanent virtual world land on which to build their own immersive education experiences, together with training on how to copy or migrate their Second Life content onto The Education Grid as well as onto their own privately hosted virtual world servers.

2010-02: Chronicle of Higher Education article: After Frustrations in Second Life, Colleges Look to New Virtual Worlds.
Some colleges that have built virtual classrooms in Second Life—the online environment where people walk around as avatars in a cartoonlike world—have started looking for an exit strategy. The virtual world has not lived up to the hype that peaked in 2007, when just about every day brought a new announcement from a college entering Second Life. Today, disenchanted with commercial virtual worlds but still convinced of their educational value, a few colleges have started to build their own, where they have more control. NOTE: This article presents two official Immersive Education Initiative alternatives to Second Life: OPEN COBALT and OPEN SIMULATOR. By mandate the Immersive Education Initiative's "Platform Ecosystem" consists only of freely available open source technologies. Open Wonderland, Open Cobalt, Open Simulator (OpenSim) and realXtend are the official Immersive Education Initiative virtual worlds platforms. Additionally, an enhanced descendant of the open source Second Life viewer (client-side end user software) is paired with open source virtual world servers to provide educators with a fully open, cost-free alternative to Second Life.

2009-12: Immersive Education 2010 Summit.
The Immersive Education Initiative today announced that early registration for the 2010 Boston Summit is now open. Boston College will host the Immersive Education 2010 Boston Summit from April 23-25 through special arrangement with the Woods College of Advancing Studies at Boston College. Organized specifically for educators, researchers, and administrators, the three-day conference consists of presentations, panel discussions, break-out sessions and workshops that provide attendees with an in-depth overview of immersive learning platforms and technologies. The Summit will feature new and emerging virtual worlds, learning games, educational simulations, mixed/augmented reality, and related teaching tools, techniques, technologies, standards and best practices. The Education Grid, Open Wonderland, Open Cobalt, Open Simulator (OpenSim) and realXtend are among the immersive learning technologies that will be featured. Members of the Initiative's open file format, library, psychology, mixed reality, and K-12 (kindergarten through high school) groups will give special presentations and workshops.

2009-10: Immersive Education Days at University of Oregon.
The Immersive Education Initiative today announced that it will sponsor the 1st University of Oregon Immersive Education Days (UOiED). The event is co-hosted by the University of Oregon's Information Services and the College of Education's new Center for Learning in Virtual Environments (CLIVE) for two full-days of presentations. Educators, researchers and administrators from University of Oregon, Boston College, Lane Community College, Bowling Green State University, Indiana University, University of Essex, St. Paul College, San Jose State University, and Loyalist College will give a series of live and virtual presentations, providing attendees with an overview of Immersive Education virtual world and game-based learning technologies. In addition the Immersive Education Days staff will host an Alternate Reality game called "Eugene vs. The EcoZombies" on the campus.

2009-09: "Rocket World" space- themed immersive learning system launched on the 40th anniversary of the first moonwalk.
Rocket World is a comprehensive immersive learning framework and core immersive STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) curricula designed to inspire and educate a new generation of scientists, engineers and researchers through the novel application of next-generation learning technology. Rocket World is specifically designed to engage students of all ages and teach core STEM concepts using a new generation of learning technology that includes virtual worlds, simulators, learning games, and mixed (augmented) reality that together immerse students in rich and collaborative space-themed learning experiences. The Initiative launched Rocket World on the 40th anniversary of the first moonwalk, and today announced that the space-themed immersive learning system will be freely available to all levels of teachers, students, scientists, engineers and researchers worldwide.

2009-08: NEWSWEEK ARTICLE: The Sound of One Hand Clicking - Online schools are booming, thanks to their convenience, low cost, and improved quality.
"...Online offerings these days can sometimes even surpass the classroom experience. Aaron Walsh, a professor at Boston College and a former videogame designer, has pioneered Immersive Education, a method of teaching through virtual worlds. Meeting in [Immersive Education virtual worlds] instead of a physical classroom, says Walsh, allows for some feats that gravity renders impossible, like having art-history students fly to the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel or biology majors to take a Magic Schoolbus-like trip through the human body. Using videos, podcasts, live chats, Webcams, and wikis, educators increasingly see online learning as a way to engage the videogame generation with pedagogy that feels more like entertainment than drudgery..."

2009-07: SNEAK PEEK: Immersive Education Initiative's "Mixed Reality Learning Table" unveiled.
A breakthrough in interactivity, the Immersive Education Mixed Reality Table (iED Table) merges 3D virtual objects and environments with physical objects from the real world. The iED Table dramatically changes the way in which students interact with computer- based learning environments by combining, or 'mixing,' the real world with the virtual world. Using either a traditional computer display, or by wearing 3D goggles, students can interact physically with a 3D immersive virtual environment that "pops up" from any 2D surface, such as a table, desk, wall, or even the floor.

2009-07: Director of Immersive Education Initiative presented with Innovator's Award prior to delivering Campus Technology 2009 keynote address.
Aaron E. Walsh, Director of the Immersive Education Initiative, was presented with the Campus Technology Innovator's Award prior to delivering the keynote address at the Campus Technology 2009 conference. Walsh was presented with the Campus Technology Innovator's award for his contributions to the field of Immersive Education, a term that describes the combination of interactive 3D graphics, commercial game and simulation technology, virtual reality, voice chat, Web cameras, and rich digital media with collaborative online course environments and classrooms. Walsh, who coined the term immersive education, then took attendees on a fast-paced journey of innovation, though his past twenty years developing new forms of learning technology that together enable the age of immersive education we are in today.

2009-04: The Immersive Education Initiative today announced that the London Summit will be free for students.
On April 23rd and 24th the London School of Economics (LSE) will host the Immersive Education Initiative's London Summit, a special two-day event showcasing new and emerging virtual worlds, learning games, educational simulations, and related tools, techniques, technologies, standards and best practices. The per-seat cost of the two-day London Summit is £195 (pound sterling), or $275 USD (U.S. dollars). Students can attend free of charge by following the instructions on the registration page at MediaGrid.org/summit.

2009-03: Immersive Education Initiative LONDON SUMMIT to Launch Series of European Events.
The Immersive Education Initiative today announced that it will launch its series of Immersive Education: Europe events in London this April. On April 23rd and 24th the London School of Economics (LSE) will host the Immersive Education Initiative's London Summit, a special two-day event showcasing new and emerging virtual worlds, learning games, educational simulations, and related tools, techniques, technologies, standards and best practices. Designed specifically for educators, researchers, and administrators, the London Summit consists of presentations, panel discussions, break-out sessions and workshops that provide attendees with an in-depth overview of immersive learning platforms and technologies such as The Education Grid, Project Wonderland, Second Life, Croquet and Cobalt, realXtend, Alice, Open Simulator (OpenSim), augmented and mixed reality, and more.