Teaching and helping someone makes the teacher a better teacher – (perhaps a case for peer mentoring).  Helping others to participate in a Virtual World requires patience, thorough comfort with and knowledge of the virtual environment, and practice.  My advice to anyone seeking to encourage colleagues to use a virtual environment for education is to first become something of an expert and practice giving assistance to others whenever an opportunity arises,  it will make you a better instructor.  Good teachers know the answers and how to best instruct partly because they have heard the same questions so many times and they have had to explain to many students with a variety of learning styles and requirements.  There is a learning curve in using virtual worlds.  When individuals become frustrated they often want to quit, give-up.  To keep the frustration at bay the teacher/helper needs the solutions in the adequate amount at the correct time in the appropriate modality for the learner.  Adopting the use of virtual environments in education is going to take time.

Check out the inworld schedule for ISTE Conference 6/27-6/30.

http://sigve.iste.wikispaces.net/VEPg+Schedule