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Knowledge Tree

The iLRN Knowledge Tree is the foundation of our network ecosystem. It provides a shared framework for understanding immersive learning as a scientific, professional, and human endeavor. Like a living tree, it connects roots (foundations), a trunk (core disciplines), and branches (applications) into a coherent whole.

🌱 Roots: Foundations of Immersive Learning

At its base, the Knowledge Tree is nourished by foundational disciplines:

  • Computer Science: Technologies, systems, and architectures that make immersive learning possible.

  • Game Studies & User Experience: Design principles and interaction patterns that create engaging, meaningful environments.

  • Learning Sciences: Theories, methods, and practices that explain how people learn and how environments can best support them.

These roots ground the field in rigor, research, and interdisciplinary collaboration.

🌳 Trunk: The Core of Our Discipline

The trunk represents immersive learning as an emerging discipline in its own right.

  • It is the structural connector between roots and branches.

  • It embodies iLRN’s role as a scholarly and professional association.

  • It supports the growth of a shared identity for immersive learning professionals worldwide.

Through the trunk, the network cultivates coherence and stability while remaining open to growth.

🌿 Branches: Application Areas

From the trunk grow diverse branches that represent immersive learning in practice. These include:

  • Assessment & Evaluation (A&E)

  • Galleries, Libraries, Archives & Museums (GLAM)

  • Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, Access & Social Justice (IDEAS)

  • STEM Education

  • Language, Culture & Heritage (LCH)

  • Medical & Healthcare Education (MHE)

  • Nature & Environmental Sciences (NES)

  • Workforce Development & Industry Training (WDIT)

  • Self and Co-Regulated Learning (SCILE)

Each branch is a space where scholars, practitioners, and communities collaborate, innovate, and apply immersive learning to specific human contexts.

🌎 The Whole Tree: A Network of Knowledge

The Knowledge Tree is more than a metaphor—it is:

  • A map of the field: showing connections between theory, design, and practice.

  • A community structure: organizing Special Tracks, Chapters, and working groups.

  • A living system: adapting as new branches grow and old ones are pruned or grafted.

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📖 How We Use the Knowledge Tree

  • As a framework for conference tracks, scholarship, and professional activities.

  • As a navigation system for the iLRN Codex and Virtual Campus.

  • As a communication tool to explain immersive learning to external audiences.

  • As a vision anchor that reminds us of our roots, trunk, and branches in every initiative.

🌟 Principle

The Knowledge Tree reminds us that immersive learning is not one field but many, connected through shared roots and branching applications. By nurturing the whole tree, iLRN fosters a thriving ecosystem where immersive learning can flourish and serve humanity.

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