Sinduja Ragunathan

Metaverse – The Promise

An idea such as the metaverse primarily rests on the promise of a high level of an immersive experience, with the following implications (Dwivedi et al., 2022).

• Various studies have shown that education in such as immersive environment increases the level of retention, interest, engagement, and so on.
• Training in extremely dangerous or volatile conditions can be simulated in a VR environment.
• Students in remote environments can access tools and speakers in a different part of the world and share space with them.
• Compared to the usual multimedia experience, the shared social space can ensure more realistic collaboration and interactivity.

However, these points all rest on some fundamental tenets: that the technology is well designed, well implemented, and well regulated. And therein lie the concerns.

Metaverse – The Concerns

• If learning design is not ensured, too much of interactivity can become distracting to students (Hirsh-Pasek et al., 2015).
• While having avatars does help in bringing about a social learning experience, the effect would not be the same is the expressions are clunky and limited (Dwivedi et al., 2022).
• The rush to commercialize the opportunity might lead to overlooking design and safety issues (Fernandez & Hui, 2022).

Reflections from my practice

I want to discuss the relevance of this technology with respect to my practice as a mathematics educator. Between July 2022 and March 2023, I taught Mathematics to grade 6 students remotely. As I sat there, part of a screen, I could use a lot of virtual manipulatives to teach mathematics. I saw the effect that these had over the usual way of teaching. If just seeing a virtual manipulative could be a boost to the understanding of concepts, then it would be much more effective to be able to physically manipulate these tools.

For example, the Geogebra website has a wealth of virtual manipulatives. You could look at the cross-section of a cube. Imagine how much more vivid it would be if the child could hold a cube and slice it herself? I definitely see Metaverse hold promise for education. However, its fulfilment will lie to a large extent on the implementation, design, and access of it, as this Brookings Report describes.

References

BBC News. (March 4, 2023). PlayStation VR2: Is virtual reality the future of gaming? [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCBCGNePaRs&t=14s

Badilla, M. C., & Fernández, A. M. (2015). A pedagogical model to develop teaching skills: The collaborative learning experience in the Immersive Virtual World. TYMMI Computers in Human Behavior, 51B, 594-603.

CNET Highlights. (Oct 28, 2021). Mark Zuckerberg reveals his vision for working in the metaverse [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsztO5eLg5k&t=41s

Dwivedi, Y.K., Hughes, L., Baabdullah, A.M., Ribeiro Navarrete, S., Giannakis, M., Al-Debei M. M., Dennehy, D., Metri, B., Buhalis, D., Wamba, S. F., et al. (2022). Metaverse beyond the hype: multidisciplinary perspectives on emerging challenges, opportunities, and agenda for research, practice and policy. International Journal of Information Management. 66:102542. doi:10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2022.102542.

Fernandez, C. B., & Hui, P. (2022). Life, the metaverse and everything: An
overview of privacy, ethics, and governance in metaverse. (2022).
IEEE 42nd International Conference on Distributed Computing
Systems (ICDCSW), Bologna, Italy. 272–277.

Hirsh-Pasek, K., Zosh, J. M., Golinkoff, R. M., Gray, J. H., Robb, M. B., & Kaufman, J. (2015). Putting education in “educational” apps: Lessons from the science of learning. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, Supplement, 16(1). https://doi.org/10.1177/1529100615569721

Jandrić, P. (2023). On the Hyping of Scholarly Research (with a Shout-Out to ChatGPT). Postdigit Sci Educ, 1-8. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-023-00402-y

Lee, L.H., Braud, T., Zhou, P., Wang, L., Xu, D., Lin, Z., Kumar, A., Bermejo, C., & Hui, P. (2021). All one needs to know about metaverse: a complete survey on technological singularity, virtual ecosystem, and research agenda. Journal of Latex Class Files,14(8),1-67.

Pappas, I. O., & Giannakos, M. N. (2021). Rethinking learning design in IT education during a pandemic. Frontiers in Education, 6(1), 103-106.

Wall Street Journal. (Nov 12, 2021). Trapped in the Metaverse: Here’s What 24 Hours in VR Feels Like [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtLTZUaMSDQ&t=304s