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:


 

Homework hotline gives K-12 students support for tricky assignments — from k12dive.com by Kara Arundel
College students offer free, on-demand help as younger students recover from pandemic-related setbacks or aim to get ahead.

Excerpt:

The college student-run resource saw an uptick in demand during the pandemic, and even though nearly all K-12 schools are now back to full-time, in-person learning, the calls to the hotline keep coming, said Gabriela Gamiz, founding Homework Hotline staff member and the college’s director of community engagement.

 
 

The amazing opportunities of AI in the future of the educational metaverse [Darbinyan]

The amazing opportunities of AI in the future of the educational metaverse — from forbes.com by Rem Darbinyan

Excerpt:

Looking ahead, let’s go over several potential AI-backed applications of the metaverse that can empower the education industry in many ways.

Multilingual Learning Opportunities
Language differences may be a real challenge for students from different cultures as they may not be able to understand and keep up with the materials and assignments. Artificial intelligence, VR and AR technologies can enhance multilingual accessibility for learners no matter where they are in the world. Speech-to-text, text-to-speech and machine translation technologies enrich the learning process and create more immersive learning environments.

AI can process multiple languages simultaneously and provide real-time translations, enabling learners to engage with the materials in the language of their choice. With the ability to instantly transcribe speech across multiple languages, artificial intelligence removes any language barriers for students, enabling them to be potentially involved, learn and communicate in any language.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Education Market size exceeded USD 1 billion in 2020 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of over 40% between 2021 and 2027. (source)

Along the lines of innovation within our educational learning ecosystems, see:

3 Questions for Coursera’s Betty Vandenbosch & U-M’s Lauren Atkins Budde on XR — from insidehighered.com by Joshua Kiim
How might extended reality shape the future of learning?

Excerpts (emphasis DSC):

[Lauren Atkins Budde] “Being able to embed quality, effective extended reality experiences into online courses is exponentially a game-changer. One of the persistent constraints of online learning, especially at scale, is how do learners get hands-on practice? How do they experience specific contexts and situations? How do they learn things that are best experienced? XR provides that opportunity for actively doing different kinds of tasks, in various environments, in ways that would otherwise not be possible. It will open up  Lauren Atkins Buddeboth how we teach online and also what we teach online.”

These courses are really exciting and cover a broad range of disciplines, which is particularly important. To choose the right subjects, we did an extensive review of insights from industry partners, learners and market research on in-demand and emerging future-of-work skills and then paired that with content opportunities where immersive learning is really a value-add and creates what our learning experience designers call “embodied learning.”

Addendum on 5/1/22:
Can the Metaverse Improve Learning? New Research Finds Some Promise — from edsurge.com by Jeffrey R. Young

“The findings support a deeper understanding of how creating unique educational experiences that feel real (i.e., create a high level of presence) through immersive technology can influence learning through different affective and cognitive processes including enjoyment and interest,” Mayer and his colleagues write.

 

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…)

 

World Maths Day -- March 23, 2022

Below are some excerpts from the information that Amanda Donnelly recently sent to me:

World Math Day takes place every year on March 23. It’s an annual global holiday where students are encouraged to solve mental math problems, find uses of math in their everyday lives, and utilize online games and platforms to enhance their skill sets in the subject.

Brainly, the largest online homework help community, has firsthand insight into the average American child’s relationship with math. Despite the love/hate relationship many people seem to have with the subject, according to a survey of 900 American students conducted by Brainly, math ranks #1 in students’ favorite subjects:

When asked to select their favorite subject in school, students answered:

  • Math (26.4%)
  • Science (20.3%)
  • English (20.1%)
  • Social Studies or History (18%)
  • Other (15.2%)


Over the last year, 1.3 million math answers have been shared on Brainly US, and 41% of answers shared so far this year are math. To address these questions, Brainly created Math Solver, an online feature focused specifically on providing step-by-step solutions to complex math problems.


Brainly Introduces Math Solver Providing Access to 24/7 Math Help — from the Brainly Insights Team with a special thanks to Amanda Donnelly for this information and these resources


 

Math worksheets for the learning process — from intelligenthq.com

Excerpt:

If you want to master the subject of mathematics, constant practice of various topics is a must. To ensure that you have the proper grasp of all the topics of the subject, solving worksheets for math is one of the best techniques. Worksheets for math facilitate the stepwise mechanism which enhances the learning process and helps students identify their mistakes. Once they can recognize what their mistakes are, they can work on improving them. Worksheets for math also have visual problems that help in the visualization process of students and make their analyzing and strategic capability high. Take worksheets for math from Cuemath and excel in math.

Also see:

Master Math with Cuemath's live, online-based classes


Also relevant/see:

In New Math Proofs, Artificial Intelligence Plays to Win — from quantamagazine.org; with thanks to Alec Lazarescu on Twitter for this resource
A new computer program fashioned after artificial intelligence systems like AlphaGo has solved several open problems in combinatorics and graph theory.

 

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.

 
© 2022 | Daniel Christian