“The future is human, and the future of learning is immersive. In the future, learning will take the shape of a story, a play, a game; involving multiple platforms and players; driven by dialogue and augmented with technology, an interplay of immersive experiences, data, and highly social virtual worlds” State of XR and Immersive Learning Outlook Report (2021) What promises can technology offer us and those we educate? In this session we will focus on the ‘ metaverse’ a science fiction hypothetical iteration from the book ‘Snow Crash’ (Stephenson 1992) set in a near future where the global political structure has collapsed (!), a tiny number of super-corporations control most aspects of life, and the rich spend their time in the metaverse. Today the metaverse is the Facebook owned platform Meta, which Mark Zuckerberg explains as “an embodied internet where you’re in the experience, not just looking at it”. Rather than our current 2D, screen-based internet, the metaverse will be a 3D virtual space, accessed by either a VR headset or AR (augmented reality) glasses, which superimpose a layer of digital information on top of the visible world. What impact might this have on our teaching practices, knowledge and beliefs? References: Lee, M.J., Georgieva, M., Alexander, B., Craig, E. and Richter, J., 2021. State of XR & immersive learning outlook report 2021. Walnut, CA: Immersive Learning Research Network. Metaverse: http://mvs.org [accessed 16.03.2023] Stephenson, N., 2003. Snow crash: A novel. Spectra.

1. ANTF Symposium 2023:
"The future is human, and the
future of learning is
immersive": discuss
Debbie Holley PhD PFHEA NTF FRSA
Professor of Learning Innovation
Twitter: follow me @debbieholley1
Email: dholley@bournemouth.ac.uk

2. Vision:
“The future is human, and the future of learning is
immersive. In the future, learning will take the shape
of a story, a play, a game; involving multiple
platforms and players; driven by dialogue and
augmented with technology, an interplay of
immersive experiences, data, and highly social
virtual worlds”
State of XR and Immersive Learning Outlook Report
(2021 p 21)
So what does this mean for us?

3. • From didactic, teacher led to student led?

4. Merging 'inside out' and
'outside in'
The metaverse: hype and fiction
• Metaverse title comes from a steam punk book
'Snow Crash'
• Facebook own it and are promoting – current
popularity is FINTECH investment (Tlili et al 2022)
• Challenges: government, inclusiveness,
tech implementation, addiction, privacy (Lin et al
2022)
• Ethical dimensions – the influence of FINTECH
companies on educational materials? (Tlili et al 2022)
• Research points to fundamental flaws with security
and privacy (Wang et 2022)
Link to site

5. Look at power and
influence....
• Meta-owned apps made up the top four smartphone apps most
visited daily by UK adults in September 2021 In September 2021,
88% of UK online smartphone-using adults visited WhatsApp, the
top-reaching smartphone app, followed by the Facebook app (87%).
Comparing average daily visitors, Facebook was visited by 61%,
WhatsApp by 50%, Instagram by 35% and Facebook Messenger by
27% of UK smartphone-owning adults who went online.
• Instagram was the top smartphone app among UK online 15-24s,
of whom 60% visited it daily, on average. One in five adults use all
three Meta-owned communication services. Nearly all (94%) UK
adult internet users aged 16+ said they used an online
communications service for making voice/video calls or sending
messages in 2021, and 80% of children aged 3-15 did the same.
Eighty-seven per cent of adults said they us they had used Meta's
comms.....
OFCOM Online Nation Report 2022

6. The metaverse: merging inside out and outside in
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DEVfUk2zCk

7. Task:
Stage 1: Ranking exercise of
which aspects of our
teaching best map to the
metaverse (10 minutes)
Activity: using post it notes,
generate as many teaching
ideas as possible, then in a
group (or groups) select the
top three
Stage 2: Small groups: work
on a selected aspect and
map onto a poster template,
which will be pre-printed
with guidance (30 minutes)
Activity: Select one teaching
idea per group and on the
template:
a. consider the digital ways
in which it could be adapted,
and b. add bullet points as
to the potential impact on
our teaching practices,
knowledge and beliefs
Stage 3: Share and discuss
(15 minutes)

8. Concluding thoughts: Are we as educators a
'wicked challenge'? And an invitation to
collaborate on an NTF blog thought piece
Educause Horizon Report™ (2022) focuses on the impact
of Learning Analytics and Big Data, the post-
Covid return to the classroom and challenges of hybrid
and online delivery to generation alpha
students, expecting the best of both, and framing the
debate in the wider context of the digital economy of
work.
JISC Student Digital Experiences Insights report (2022);
this clearly shows students wishing to have access
to engaging, well designed materials that support and
enhance their learning. However, 43% of those
surveyed report low quality materials being supplied
And a campus challenge identified as 'wicked problem' is
re-defining the role of educators with the
expansion of technologies (NMC New Horizons 2018) - a
challenge that is hard to define and we do not have
the problems to resolve...

9. References:
• Lee, M.J., Georgieva, M.,
Alexander, B., Craig, E. and
Richter, J., 2021. State of XR &
immersive learning outlook report
2021. Walnut, CA: Immersive
Learning Research Network.
• Metaverse: http://mvs.org
[accessed 16.03.2023]
• Stephenson, N., 2003. Snow
crash: A novel. Spectra.