What does the Metaverse have to do with us?

In This Edition:

Learn about Extended Reality (XR), its pros and cons for education — 
Use Edpuzzle to activate the new YouTube for Education player —
Learn more handy Canva shortcuts.

Your Weekly Digital Learning Compendium

OUR FOCUS THIS WEEK

Bună Dimineaţa, Vampires!

The Metaverse is…a word that makes many of us furrow our brows, no!? 🤨 It certainly feels like a thing of the future, and while the Metaverse is indeed not here yet, the concept is becoming more and more ubiquitous around us. Have you thought about how immersive environments like these impact the educational sector? Let’s Embrace Possibility and learn about the newest developments from the resources below.
G2 student learning about the Sahara Desert during a virtual field trip.

WHAT MIGHT LEARNING IN THE METAVERSE LOOK LIKE?

As Harvard Graduate School of Education researcher and Ph.D. candidate Eileen McGivney affirms, “in the Metaverse, we imagine students building skills and exploring in shared virtual spaces without the boundaries of the physical world.”

To live up to its promise, however, and not repeat implementation mistakes from the past, McGivney and team have created this excellent guide to empower educators to develop their understanding of the Metaverse’s affordances and limitations. 

Let’s break this down into “tech-byte”-sized chunks, shall we?

Metaverse Tools: Extended Reality (XR)

XR, which stands for “extended reality,” or “cross reality,” is term for immersive technologies used to access the Metaverse.

In a nutshell, these immersive technologies include:
  • Augmented Reality (AR): Using a smartphone or tablet to superimpose digital content onto the physical world. Think Snapchat filters or games like Pokémon Go. 
  • Mixed Reality (MR): Users interact with physical and virtual objects with a head-mounted, see-through display. Students might scan a physical space and embed an undersea environment where fish can swim around them. 
  • Virtual Reality (VR): The physical environment is completely replaced with audio and visual stimuli in a virtual world. A headset like Oculus can allow a student to shrink down and explore the human body from the inside.  
This video shows you an excellent overview in under 5 minutes:

Pros and Cons

The affordances of XR mostly come without a need for explanations:
  • Increasing Interest and Motivation to Learn
  • Personalization
  • Visualization
  • Active Learning
  • Game-Based Learning
  • Virtual/Augmented Field Trips
  • Role-Play and Perspective-Taking
  • Immersive Storytelling
  • Novel Social Interactions
Some clear limitations, on the other hand, are:
  • Cognitive Load: XR experiences provide learners
    with a lot of visual and auditory stimuli which
    can increase their cognitive load as they process
    what they see, hear, and read.
  • Time Constraints: unsurprisingly, extended use can make people nauseous. 
  • Accessibility
  • Affordability
  • Lack of Educational Content
  • Privacy and Safety
  • Difficult to Assess Learning
Read more here.

So, how can we use it?

As with any other application, when designing learning with XR in mind, the questions we need to ask ourselves are:

What are your learning goals? Will it enhance or support the learning in any way? Is it necessary?

What will you need? If creating content for XR experiences is not something you want to tackle yet, this Educational VR Applications Database from Stanford University is a good place to start.   

What are your expectations? What’s your criteria for success with such lessons?

 

Is it available at AISB?

Different options can be made available at AISB, like Google Cardboard sets and iPods for virtual field trips with National Geographic content, or using CoSpaces to create 3D landscapes. Talk to us if you have new ideas to explore!

PROFESSIONAL LEARNING

Edpuzzle is now an official YouTube Partner. It is the ONLY edtech platform that offers the new YouTube Player for Education.

And we have a subscription you can use!

This is a welcome addition to your instructional toolkit: the new YouTube embedded player shows content without distractions like ads, external links or recommendations. And the partnership with Edpuzzle is an advantage for us, subscribers.

 Click here to join our premium service (sign in with Google).

Helpful resources to get you started:

Learn how to use Edpuzzle
Integrate Edpuzzle content with Google Classroom
5 Ways to Use Edpuzzle with Elementary Students
 

SHORCUTS

Canva users will enjoy these shortcuts:

Back To Top