My Life in Two Worlds
By Lynne Berrett
My goal in life is to unite my avocation with my vocation/As my two eyes make one in sight Robert Frost
It’s been a busy time in my life in virtual worlds.
The Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education (VWBPE) conference in Second Life (which Jena just wrote about in our last post) is taking place online this week from Thursday April 3 through Saturday April 5th. Its theme is “Transitions,” a very apt word for this year.
I am clearly a conference junky because I will be participating in quite a few events: organizing and moderating a panel on lifelong learning opportunities in Second Life; organizing a visit to our Whole Brain Health (WBH) space to -- let’s be honest – show off the most recent innovative tools for immersive learning our team has been developing uses for there; being interviewed about the award I was given in 2021 for educational leadership in virtual worlds; guiding visitors through our VWBPE exhibit, Roots of Wisdom, created by our team; and assisting other presenters as well.
What I especially like about this conference is that it attracts hundreds of attendees from inside and outside SL. Some actually come in as avatars just for the events. Others watch them on Livestream and later on YouTube recordings. I’ve been attending and presenting at VWBPE since my early days in Second Life. As I think about it, it gave me a less stressful, certainly less expensive way to continue what I’d been doing before discovering virtual worlds.
I first learned about SL at a 2012 conference on Positive Aging (PA) in Los Angeles where Josh and I gave an interactive workshop on music for brain health. We had been presenting our dog and pony show in libraries, at conferences, over the telephone (pre-Zoom days!), and on our website since the early 2000’s. The demonstration of Second Life at the PA conference attracted a lot of attention, but I was one of the few who wanted to find out more. So I asked the major presenter, who was (ta-da!) our Jena Ball, to show me how to enter Second Life. The rest is history.
I was 73 years old at the time. At first, learning how to navigate a virtual world was challenging. I had very little computer experience. But I persevered, helped by many people there and also, probably, by my top character strength, curiosity. At first, I was simply enchanted by the visual beauty of an environment designed and built by so many creative residents. The whole place fired my imagination. Soon I began to want to do something meaningful myself.
I put my toe in the water by giving my first presentation at a conference inworld sponsored by Virtual Ability, where I introduced our holistic approach to brain health based on science. Virtual Ability is a highly respected nonprofit that provides support and community for people who have physical and other limitations. One woman who had lost the ability to walk told me SL had liberated her: she could ride horses and ice skate there, things she had loved to do before her illness. Most importantly, she had made new friends from all over the world. She didn’t have any time anymore to feel lonely and depressed.
The response at that conference encouraged me to establish a program inworld that I named Whole Brain Health. I was very lucky soon after that to meet two very special people who felt as excited about WBH as I did. They joined me in building a space that drew others to us. It turned out that SL was home to many more retirees than I had realized, and a lot of them were looking for something meaningful to do inworld. They became our volunteer base, the WBH Collective. We’re still growing, a group with about 30 members now who host discussions and workshops, play live or recorded music in all genres, and create immersive, interactive learning experiences for humans in their avatar bodies.
Over the years, since WBH was founded in 2013, we’ve become known for the many ways we increase the wellbeing of SL residents. We’ve experimented with many kinds of activities, beginning with a daylong Brain Health Fair each month. In 2023 we hosted our own conference on Healthful Aging. It was supposed to be a simple, brief event, but so many people wanted to be presenters that it ended up lasting a week. Every day was filled with speakers and events. You can read about many of our presenters here.
For me, personally, life in SL has been play more than work. I am highly engaged in things that enrich my whole being. I’ve had to become more flexible and am much more social than introverte-me ever was before SL. I’ve also developed skills I would never have imagined. At 86 I keep surprising myself with new ideas. I laugh a lot. I feel very fortunate that I was brave enough to take this leap into the unknown.
Circling back to this year’s VWBPE conference with more specific information:
As I said, I am co-moderating the first Roundtable on lifelong learning that will highlight the many places to learn about art, science, poetry, building, history, religion, technology, etc. right in SL. We want our audience to be part of conversation, so it will be lively. That’s on Saturday April 5 at 10 am PDT.
On Saturday April 5 at 2pm PDT I’ll be interviewed as the 2021 recipient of the Thinkerer Award for Educational Leadership at the conference. I’ll share how receiving that award has contributed to my growth. As I said in my acceptance speech then, and I’ll repeat in the interview, anything I have accomplished could not have been done without the WBH Collective.
And on Sunday April 6, from 11 am to 1 pm PDT, our WBH Collective is hosting one of VWBPE’s immersive experiences. We’ll take you to 5 of our self-guided learning areas to experience the pleasure of learning-by-doing. You’ll visit a piece of Africa and an interactive brain large enough to fly around in. Your guide will be the retired neurologist who built it.
Our colorful exhibit at the conference, Roots of Wisdom: Listen, Learn, Grow displays some of the innovations we are employing to make lifelong learning more immersive and active.
I hope I’ve been able to convey, somewhat adequately, how life in a virtual world has enhanced my ability to design an ageless mind. You may never want to try it yourself, but reading about my adventures may spark your own experiments and adventures. I hope you’ll share them with us here. Each person’s story has the potential to ignite other minds.
The program for the VWBPE conference is available online here: https://www.vwbpe.org/conference/vwbpe25-program.
If you are not familiar with SL and would like to attend the conference and visit our exhibit or watch on livestream or on recordings afterwards, write to me @agelessmindproject@gmail.com for more information. I’m happy to help.
Lynne
Copyright 2025 by Lynne Berrett. All Rights Reserved.
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