Online Learning, From the Margins to the Center — from insidehighered.com by Ray Schroeder
Online learning has evolved over the past 25 years from a niche position on the margins of higher ed to the leading driver of growth in enrollment and innovation.

Excerpt:

Online learning has grown from a marginal niche of higher ed to the largest provider of postsecondary learning in the world. We are now on the cusp of yet another technological evolution in the delivery of online learning. The advent of the metaverse in higher education is closer than many casual observers may think. By 2025, we will begin to see significant numbers of offerings using avatars and immersive technologies such as virtual reality, augmented reality and extended reality engaging learners at a distance.

Do you have developmental immersion laboratories for your faculty and staff to prepare for 2025? Who at your university is advocating for the integration of VR, AR and XR into online delivery? Are you already collaborating with industry and business in developing the most effective and relevant technology-enhanced online programs that will meet their needs? Those who lead in these ventures will set the standards and gain the recruiting advantage in higher education.

 

From DSC:
Is the use of virtual instructors going to be used more to fill vacancies within K12? Hmmm…time will tell. 

By the way, I think online-based learning works for many people, but certainly it isn’t for everyone (even with the likely unfair assumption that everyone has Internet access and the equipment/setup that they need). From what I’ve observed, it works best for very disciplined, motivated students — they need to be a bit more independent in their learning. But school systems should have backup plans in place if the exodus continues.



Education tech companies bring virtual teaching to the table as solution to teacher shortage — from thedenverchannel.com by Chloe Nordquist

Excerpts:

Education technology companies like Elevate K-12, which is a live streaming instruction platform, are growing. Especially in areas where hiring a teacher can be tough.

The company is seeing more interest from teachers in joining their platform. One is for schedule flexibility.

 
 

The Metaverse in 2040 — from pewresearch.org by Janna Anderson and Lee Rainie
Hype? Hope? Hell? Maybe all three. Experts are split about the likely evolution of a truly immersive ‘metaverse.’ They expect that augmented- and mixed-reality enhancements will become more useful in people’s daily lives. Many worry that current online problems may be magnified if Web3 development is led by those who built today’s dominant web platforms

 

The metaverse will, at its core, be a collection of new and extended technologies. It is easy to imagine that both the best and the worst aspects of our online lives will be extended by being able to tap into a more-complete immersive experience, by being inside a digital space instead of looking at one from the outside.

Laurence Lannom, vice president at the Corporation for National Research Initiatives

“Virtual, augmented and mixed reality are the gateway to phenomenal applications in medicine, education, manufacturing, retail, workforce training and more, and it is the gateway to deeply social and immersive interactions – the metaverse.

Elizabeth Hyman, CEO for the XR Association

 


 

The table of contents for the Metaverse in 2040 set of articles out at Pew Research dot org -- June 30, 2022

 


 

Meet the metaverse: Creating real value in a virtual world — from mckinsey.com with Eric Hazan and Lareina Yee

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Welcome to the metaverse. Now, where exactly are we? Imagine for a moment the next iteration of the internet, seamlessly combining our physical and digital lives. It’s many things: a gaming platform, a virtual retail spot, a training tool, an advertising channel, a digital classroom, a gateway to entirely new virtual experiences. While the metaverse continues to be defined, its potential to unleash the next wave of digital disruption is clear. In the first five months of 2022, more than $120 billion have been invested in building out metaverse technology and infrastructure. That’s more than double the $57 billion invested in all of 2021.

How would you define the metaverse?
Lareina: What’s exciting is that the metaverse, like the internet, is the next platform on which we can work, live, connect, and collaborate. It’s going to be an immersive virtual environment that connects different worlds and communities. There are going to be creators and alternative currencies that you can buy and sell things with. It will have a lot of the components of Web3 and gaming and AR, but it will be much larger.

Also relevant/see:


Also relevant/see:


 

Slido Lesson Plan — from techlearning.com by Stephanie Smith Budhai, Ph.D.
This Slido Lesson Plan is designed to help educators implement the digital tool into their instruction

Excerpt:

Slido is an exciting online engagement edtech tool that can be used to connect all students with academic content while getting them involved in the lesson.

While Slido is often used to incorporate polling into virtual workshops and presentations, there are a wide range of student engagement features within the Slido platform that can be used by teachers during lessons.

Also see:

Slido -- your go-to interaction app for hybrid meetings

 

We need to use more tools — that go beyond screen sharing — where we can collaborate regardless of where we’re at. [Christian]

From DSC:
Seeing the functionality in Freehand — it makes me once again think that we need to use more tools where faculty/staff/students can collaborate with each other REGARDLESS of where they’re coming in to partake in a learning experience (i.e., remotely or physically/locally). This is also true for trainers and employees, teachers and students, as well as in virtual tutoring types of situations. We need tools that offer functionalities that go beyond screen sharing in order to collaborate, design, present, discuss, and create things.  (more…)

 

The best lighting for video conferencing, according to experts— from blog.webex.com

A home office lighting setup for video conferencing.

Contents:

  • What is the best lighting for video conferencing?
  • Where should the light be for a video call?
  • What kind of lighting is best for video meetings?
  • What are the best lighting products for a video conference?
  • What is the best lighting for video conferencing on-the-go?
  • Good lighting means good communication:
 

Why the World’s First Virtual Reality High School Changes Everything — from steve-grubbs.medium.com by Steve Grubs

Excerpts:

The recipe required key ingredients to happen. In addition to an accredited school to manage students, admissions and the for-credit learning, it also needed a platform. That’s where EngageVR comes in. There are other platforms that will ultimately host schools, perhaps AltSpace, Horizon or others, but the first is on Engage.

The bottom line is this: creators, coders, educators, entrepreneurs, investors, corporations, parents and students all played a role in finally bringing the first global virtual reality high school to life. It won’t be the last school to open in the metaverse, but to all those involved in this inaugural launch — the Neil Armstrongs of your age — a special tip of the hat today for having the vision and the willingness to launch a better and more equitable era of education.

Also see:

This is a snapshot from the Geo Guesser VR game

 

Holograms? Check! Now what? [Bieniek @ Webex]

Holograms? Check! Now what? — from blog.webex.com by Elizabeth Bieniek

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Two years ago, I wrote about the Future of Meetings in 2030 and hinted at an effort my team was building to make this a reality. Now, we have publicly unveiled Webex Hologram and brought the reality of a real-time, end-to-end holographic meeting solution to life.

With Webex Hologram, you can feel co-located with a colleague who is thousands of miles away. You can share real objects in incredible multi-dimensional detail and collaborate on 3D content to show perspective, share, and approve design changes in real-time, all from the comfort of your home workspace.

As the hype dies down, the focus on entirely virtual experiences in fanciful environments will abate and a resurgence in focus on augmented experiences—interjecting virtual content into the physical world around you for an enhanced experience that blends the best of physical and virtual—will emerge.

The ability to have curated information at one’s fingertips, still holds an incredible value prop that has yet to be realized. Applying AI to predict, find, and present this type of augmented information in both 2D and 3D formats will become incredibly useful. 

From DSC:
As I think of some of the categories that this posting about establishing a new kind of co-presence relates to, there are many relevant ones:

  • 21st century
  • 24x7x365
  • 3D
  • Audio/Visual (A/V)
  • Artificial Intelligence (AI)
  • Cloud-based
  • Collaboration/web-based collaboration
  • Intelligent tutoring
  • Law schools, legal, government
  • Learning, learning agents, learning ecosystems, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning spaces/hubs/pods
  • Libraries/librarians
  • K-12, higher education, corporate training
  • Metaverse
  • Online learning
  • Telelegal, telemedicine
  • Videoconferencing
  • Virtual courts, virtual tutoring, virtual field trips
  • Web3
 

Exploring Virtual Reality [VR] learning experiences in the classroom — from blog.neolms.com by Rachelle Dene Poth

Excerpt:

With the start of a new year, it is always a great time to explore new ideas or try some new methods that may be a bit different from what we have traditionally done. I always think it is a great opportunity to stretch ourselves professionally, especially after a break or during the spring months.

Finding ways to boost student engagement is important, and what I have found is that by using tools like Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR), we can immerse students in unique and personalized learning experiences. The use of augmented and virtual reality has increased in K-12 and Higher Ed, especially during the past two years, as educators have sought new ways to facilitate learning and give students the chance to connect more with the content. The use of these technologies is increasing in the workplace, as well.

With all of these technologies, we now have endless opportunities to take learning beyond what has been a confined classroom “space” and access the entire world with the right devices.

 
 

Cisco and Google join forces to transform the future of hybrid work — from blog.webex.com by Kedar Ganta

Cisco and Google join forces to transform the future of hybrid work

Excerpts:

Webex [on 12/7/21] announced the public preview of its native meeting experience for Glass Enterprise Edition 2 (Glass), a lightweight eye wearable device with a transparent display developed by Google. Webex Expert on Demand on Glass provides an immersive collaboration experience that supports natural voice commands, gestures on touchpad, and head movements to accomplish routine tasks.

 

 
 

What doors does this type of real-time translation feature open up for learning? [Christian]

From DSC:
For that matter, what does it open up for #JusticeTech? #Legaltech? #A2J? #Telehealth?

 

Learning from the living class room

 
© 2024 | Daniel Christian