Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Virtual Worlds Presentation for 2012 Virtual Enterprise Conference at Glyndŵr University


The Virtual Enterprise Conference at Glyndŵr University brings together a diverse range of web entrepreneurs, students and academics to discuss the opportunities for e-entrepreneurship offered by virtual worlds and the social web.  It's hosted each year by the Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning at Glyndŵr University.

On Feb 23 at this year's conference, I had the pleasure of giving a presentation on Best Practices in Virtual Worlds.  Here's the full video.  


The Right Tool for the Right Job: Best Practices for Virtual Worlds from John Lester on Vimeo.

You can grab a copy of my slides on Google, and you can visit the Jibe world featured in my presentation by going here.

Thanks again to Matthew Draycott from the Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning at Glyndŵr University for inviting me to speak.  It was a great opportunity!

- John "Pathfinder" Lester
Chief Learning Officer
ReactionGrid, Inc.

Friday, February 10, 2012

Talking about Virtual Worlds on MetaReality



Yesterday I was a guest on MetaReality's weekly podcast about virtual worlds.

We chatted about my time at Linden Lab, cool stuff happening at ReactionGrid, virtual world platforms like Jibe and Opensim, the Hypergrid Adventurers Club, and the future evolution of virtual worlds.

Great people, great discussion and quite a few laughs.  Kim, thank you again for having me on the show.

My favorite part was when all of us logged in to my Jibe world and ran around exploring while we were chatting live on the show.  Lots of fun!



-John "Pathfinder" Lester
Chief Learning Officer, ReactionGrid Inc.

Thursday, February 9, 2012

ReactionGrid Mobilizer Expands to Game Based Learning & Sim Studio

ReactionGrid's "Mobilizer" group for Android publishing is expanding to become our division for start to finish rapid Game Based Learning & Simulation production and publishing for our Jibe platform.  Like a video game producer that works with partners and contractors to create great titles but in this case focused on game based learning and simulations.

Our team paired with vetted Jibe/Unity3D industry titans and community newcomers and veterans are already in production of several 6 figure indie game based learning and simulation efforts based on Jibe.  If you have a huge idea and need support quickly expressing the idea to grant committees or other decision makers we have the team.

Remember you can start proposing Android and iOS mobile concepts now to the NSF and others because we support that out of the box.  We think mobile game based learning and simulations is an exciting new area of virtual worlds.  When you need a supporting grant or proposal document that genuinely has thought put into your particular project's 3D multi-user needs contact us at www.reactiongrid.com .

We also have a path forward for our community to become a qualified partner for producing content for our projects.  The following Jibe levels are to encourage the building of a community of developers for rapidly developing 3D applications.


  1. Jiblet-Has a Jibe project kit and successfully completed our Chief Learning Officer's introduction Jibe/Unity3D course (free with Jibe order).
  2. Jixxer-Achieved creating a new mesh object and adding it to their Jibe world.
  3. Jinja-Has written or modified a C# or JavaScript script and published it to their Jibe world.
  4. JiMax-Contributed a new core functionality to Jibe or changed how it works in a new way.
  5. JiFleet-Part of our approved contractor fleet for Mobilizer by climbing the Jibe ladder or industry & Jibe/Unity3D experience.

The Mobilizer Core Team:
  • Kyle G Producer/QA/Art Direction
  • Robin G Project Manager/QA/Storyline/Avatars & Characters
  • Chris Hart Technical Writer/QA/Game Designer/A.I. Lead
  • Jeff Lowe Game Designer/QA/World Developer
  • John Lester Instructional Designer/QA/World Developer

All Mobilizer qualified projects are developed using a combination of our JIRA management tools, our ISO 9001 focused Production & QA procedures and our own virtual world environments & collaboration tools for maximum customer involvement and team building. 

If you would like to find out how to move up the Jibe qualification ladder watch this blog as we're growing fast and will always look to our community first for partnerships.  A list of JiFleet partners will be published soon as well.  Let's succeed together!

Kyle G

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

ReactionGrid featured in the Virtual Education Journal

The 3rd Issue of the Virtual Education Journal is out, and ReactionGrid is featured in several of the articles. Of particular interest is the article contributed by educator Scott Merrick of Metro Nashville Public Schools. In it, he explains his and other educator's use of Opensimulator, as well as his ongoing work with the Jibe platform. You can visit his Jibe world mentioned in the article by clicking HERE.