 It is the top of the hour. So let's begin. Let me welcome everybody. Let me welcome you to the Future Trends Forum My name is Brian Alexander. I'm the forum's creator host and chief CAD herder And I'll be your guide to the next hour of conversation about the future of education All that is a way to just welcome our program in order to do that I need to give you the pointer to what anchors it We're taking a look today at XR working the combination of augmented and virtual reality mixed reality Extended or expanded reality, and we're doing it with the help of a great report This is the state of XR immersive learning report published by the immersive learning foundation or the immersive learning network They are a terrific group, and this is an important report We've seen bits of it now you get a sneak peek at the full thing as it's about to appear now in order to have people talk About this in order to give us the expert advice and the expert knowledge We have three people here Jonathan Richter from Eiler. I'm just gonna bring Jonathan up on stage right now Jonathan's coming to us from Montana. I believe and he's there. Hello, Jonathan. Hey, everyone How are you? I'm good doing good Brian. Thanks Excellent. Excellent first. I've got two quick introductory questions for you first of all What's your title at Eiler? I am the president and chief executive officer of Eiler Very good, and then the second question is and this is a tricky question given given everything that's going on What are you gonna be working on the most for the next year? I mean, what's what's uppermost in your mind? Well, I mean COVID-19 is is obviously right up there You know helping people to get access lowering the barriers to How people can use these incredible technologies to immerse And learn in meaningful ways. I think is up is foremost in our mind We've shifted and pivoted along with many other educational technology companies To be able to be able to do just that so I think I think that's probably number one very good And in fact this summer with the Eiler presentation, which was done in part through a VR platform for Bella, right? Yeah, that's right. And yet we continue to work with for Bella. They provided a gold sponsorship to our Immersive Learning Research Network Conference last June and as part of that provided us with a Year of use of that campus and so that's what we've been doing is turning that on and And working with partners and collaborating. So, yeah, excellent. Excellent. Well, now, I've got you on stage Hold tight for a second because we could bring up two more guests. This is gonna be a full-court press here on XR I am just absolutely delighted to welcome back Maya Gorgeva Maya is a friend. She is coming to us from the new school in New York City she is one of the world's experts in extended reality and And she has also been a guest in the program twice Maya. So good to see you It's great to see you Brian. Hi John And everybody tuning in today about this topic Indeed Maya quick question. What is your role in the state of XR report? In the state of XR Naturally, I look into the future of learning and the greater the greatest opportunities that exist and we look into Authentic learning immersive learning empowering students empowering faculty, you know thinking about integration of XR and AI and Fostering collaboration in in virtual worlds. So it's a compelling section and I've been honored to work on it Well, Maya That's all that happened. I asked Jonathan what he's gonna be working into the next year. I think you just told me what you're gonna be working on for the next year as well Yes Absolutely, I think that I think It's it's a great opportunity to find in challenging times that we find all of us find ourselves right now But I couldn't be more passionate about creating the future of learning with immersive and technologies and really focusing on the focusing on our students and faculty Well, since I took such a bring up our third guest for tonight. We've just completely filled up the entire stage I am equally delighted to welcome another friend and another great guest in the forum before Emory Craig coming to us from New York. Emory is the CTO of digital bodies and he is here. Hello Emory Hello, how are you? Can you hear me? Okay? Perfectly good good because I had audio issues when I first got started and hi Jonathan I never get to see you actually I see you all the time and Maya I see you on the T To see the three of you all the time I know boy, but of course we never see each other face-to-face these days. It's always through a screen I should I face-to-face that would be exciting and not necessarily in a good way. No, I know we What are you gonna be working on for the next year? I think like Maya and like John similar kinds of things In terms of helping roll off these technologies and strategizing ways to lower the barriers Obviously we weren't well. We had a pep pandemic We never want to see but if we had to have it it came way too soon I think if it happened ten years from now We would be in a very different position because XR would be in a very different place and a lot more people would Have hardware the hardware would be a lot better the platforms would be a lot more sophisticated We can talk about that in a bit so where we are right now Of course is I think XR is kind of scrambling to catch up or trying to figure out ways To be useful in what we can only call our new normal and our new normal means for some people Of course that they're scrambling to even just figure out ways to do online learning and overcome basic Barriers in that particularly in inner-city neighborhoods first nation reservations Any number of places? But in obviously with XR there's huge challenges here I do think down the road though that it will be a game changer and like I said for the next pandemic God forbid but they did they do seem to happen and we might as well adjust to the reality of it When the next one happens, it will be very different because we're very much live in virtual worlds Simultaneously with living in a real world, but we're not there yet So right now that is the challenge is helping overcome those barriers And I probably put away all my Google Cardboards thinking I'd never have to use them again And I've been kind of dusting them off and saying yes As bad as it is it's something if you have nothing else it is it's better than nothing So, you know here. We are again. So that's where we are right now and where I am so and and of course like you Brian I've been grounded my you know my consulting work is is all on the screen. So Well, we can do that we are creative people Where things are in the present and where they might be what we'll be doing today so friends if you see two quick things before we dive if you look in the bottom left of the screen you should see kind of Tang or almost orange and colored button and if you click that that's gonna be a link to the report web page So you can learn more about that. I think there are the lost men asked about that So you should be able to cut that and the second thing is I'm gonna ask a couple of quick questions But the form is about your questions in your comments. So we'd love to hear from you We'll be able to switch back to that raised hand button or question mark button and throw our For personal questions as we go And before I can say anything Before I can say anything if Brian Cochran the University of Westland is just already curious in question. Yeah, let's see Brian asks how close is X tower to delivering on the more tactile aspects of acquisition of Who wants to take a road? I Think this this question naturally belongs in the ring of emory as He's tackled this, you know this section of the report, but also I think he's written quite a bit on digital bodies about The work that is taking place right now Yeah, I mean there's a couple of things here, but in terms of haptic issues We really have a ways to go. There's a lot of fascinating developments happening I see it actually some of the most interesting projects right now are in Kickstarter and You know people are Researching this and figuring out ways to make experiences more immersive and that really is an ultimate goal here I think for all of us our first experience of XR has been you put on a headset and you have this visual and you have this auditory Experience but it's going to become much more than that down the road and that of course is what's going to have a huge impact on education And on workforce training but you know the the hardware for that right now is just kind of getting off the ground and For the most part it's expensive Maya has like a whole volumetric capture lab buried away in some basement of the new school. I know I Shouldn't say that I know but it's not accessible right now Unfortunately, you know, but it will be again and I know when it is I know Parsons faculty and new school faculty will be lined up to be using it I mean we are tackling I think one at a time people tackling smell touch You know basically various all the different sensors. It's gonna call come all together It ultimately will what it's gonna come through. Um, you know wearables embedded in in our pants Or like watches or similar devices or it's going to come to, you know, direct impulses to our brain This is coming people working and it will be just as real you'll be walking to a cow called Kind of web and and you're going to feel, you know, as you move through it, you know How when it's coming and some I'm working with but that that's how that's what people are working, you know today and You know, I've met in Silicon Valley Even a year ago in conversations where you have people that are looking into that looking in translating water Looking into translating haptics. So it's fascinating. We're not there yet Even in a very high and industry lab to simulate some of these experiences It shakes, you know, sort of a Convergence of technologies and resources, but it's coming. I think at the same time I feel like we should be all in bed at on the ground and trying things out testing the ground, you know Finding new ways to simulate that. I mean, I know that I've had experiences on film festivals, you know, people are, you know They're lighting matches so you can smell fire Having rolling with a fan so you can you can experience when so I think I think that you just throw us up So we'll get we'll see if Maya's connection can start on her Right. It's like we lost Maya. I think we lost you for a second. There was just just a pause you started to say I think She might be having connections Now you want to read the truth? But before we before we do that, thank you Maya and thank you Emory for those answers thinking about how to computing and Computing is very very very important. I'm also Working on the knowledge itself. I'm just doing Jonathan. Well, people covered more questions Can you tell us a bit about the report how the report was generated and what we should expect for it? Sure. Um Yeah, everyone can hear me. Okay. I assume Good. Yeah, so the state of XR project was born Out of a bit of you know We were big fans of the new media consortium's horizon report for many years that came out year after year And edgica's Kind of picked that up when new media consortium ran into some troubles and the report There was a few years there where it wasn't coming out and I Learned which came out of the American Educational Research Association's special interest group on XR Called Arial CIG applied research in immersive environments for learning CIG and We were really thinking like you know with within this field of XR There's so many different sort of animals in the zoo and there's so much innovation and technology that's going on in this space I wonder if we could just do a sort of horizon style delphi survey report just in this space because we were thinking it's gonna continue to change and and proliferate in different ways and so Mark Lee might my partner in crime Worked with the IEEE education society still does and He'd heard that we were doing this and said John You guys that I learn are probably not gonna be able to really pick this up and really do anything with it Even though you've really been talking about it working within the network for a while So actually I triple E icicle group a working group around these different things they picked it up and started doing these things and Working on kind of developing a monthly community call and scanning the environment looking for these things and One to skip a few what happened was that I Triple E decided that they did not want to actually go forward with the actual production of the report and I learned was going hmm will do it so picked it up and Started working with some of the former new media consortium Executives the people who had done the work around those reports Created a working space and found a hundred experts from around the world balanced Across various different disciplinary areas and Making sure that we had a good representation of of gender and ethnicity and race and We went through these these using the workspace That we created we asked these three questions kind of in succession starting in July and ending up in November Kind of working working through together to expand the environment and find these various technologies and really thinking about or discussing the value to education in the various applications So that's kind of the the on top the beginnings of of the of the report for other That's great. Thank you for that history. I love how it keys off of so much So many different facets of education and technology we've been experiencing And before I can ask you to follow up on that there are more questions of them piling in The awesome Kelvin Bentley, let me just bring him up on stage. I can see You know, please dramatic moment No Hello Kelvin. I saw you and we vanished. Oh I'm here. I can hear you and I've got just a blank screen. Is your camera? Yeah, I'm here Well, why don't you ask your question that we'll have to imagine your handsome face? Well, hey, thanks everybody and Thanks for bringing me on Brian real quick. So I guess my question is You know Arizona State University just recently announced that they will be Kind of building a new VR Platform with a company called dreamscape immersive and You know leave it to ASU to kind of trump everyone while we're in a pandemic, right? So I'm just wondering What will it take, you know, what what resources will it take for schools to be able to do? You know, maybe just a tenth of what schools like ASU are doing with AR and VR tech And do you see there being also an opportunity for us to maybe share? Learning experiences. So because I almost feel like there's like a like there's a new Renaissance coming in terms of what learning experience, you know Learning objects are going to be over time because I feel like so many courses are defined by again video clips and PowerPoint slides and kind of the usual suspects in terms of content But this this new this new era of tech Still is lacking. I think in most of our online courses or blended courses And so what will it take for us to? You know for higher ed especially to get to a point where we'll be able to maybe share more content or at least Be able to develop Content in a way that we can do it more at scale so that we're not just again hearing about ASU doing this work But we're hearing about many universities and also community colleges that of course, you know lack a lot of the resources to do this work As well, it's maybe some of our Research universities indeed good question Kelvin hang on a second. Let me just Thank you for the oral question. And again, we imagine you in your hands in this. Let me just We used to knock you off once we bring Maya on stage because she's jumping into the dance with us Here we go. Here we go. And Maya it's still must be still raining horribly there in New York Indeed it is How's my audio? Alright, great now great question and thank you so much I think it's a very important question and of course, you know, it's great to have institutions Trying new things and obviously it's it's wonderful that as you is going to do that And they have an interesting partner In that venture dreamscape or creating a dreamscape learn so building up of an idea really of You know location-based VR, which is interesting We you know, it's not unlike what some of you are doing and some of us are doing in labs, right? Because when you have a location-based VR in the lab or in the studio You have the opportunity to control the variables great now. They're also getting content, right? They're getting what they're getting is immersive content Which is well very well-developed and produced. Alright, so and I'm going to try to link as to how you know As I answer this question is what we what all of us can try because ultimately we can try things And you know, wait, you know, Arizona State's great partner I'm really and I serve as the innovators in residence and criminalizing immersive learning project for years So, you know, we love that this is taking place at the same time We have been working really hard for the last 10 years about all of you. So content, right? So in their case, you know, they you know or in our cases They're picking up a particular area and I'm going to advise that you do that, you know They're focusing on bio biology for some of you the different areas in the school that matter Pick up the one where you can have champions Let's just say that also a shoe is building this up on a couple of other earlier projects if they had a project with Laps and Google some of you were already in a third Second year of some of you may be just starting in but I know I see faces on on this on the screen that I know you're like three years in So, you know how that works It's good that people get some experience with VR and it's good And as they get some more experiences in these environments, they get better. So, um, you know bringing in the experts and then Something that we've been you know, something that we've been championing. Oh, right it's going to take a combination between Thinking about these worlds imagining these worlds and putting but at the same time putting students and faculty in there You know asking them to discover thing and in the process of you know Not just thinking rethinking what you do through me through other media from text to to film Taking this away and and starting to think what happens when you're actually walking into these worlds You know, what happens when you can be in a new world and discovering, you know, new artifacts, um, you know, whether this is architecture whether this is in a bio or You know, you are you know, you're excavating Something you are, you know in you know in the present or put as a time machine into the future Trying to solve a real problem So, you know, right there taking a very high, you know high level multi You know a large-scale approach to it. Um, but all of us can take Darn it. Darn it. Wow. It's a dramatic pause Maybe at these storms are more substantial than in towns, I guess we stress on the infrastructure The next thing can you hear me? Yeah back All right What are students in faculty going to do, you know, they're going to be thinking about that You are going to we all of us are actually asked these ideas Ideas around different fields will come from different institutions and different places so, you know that collaboration between You know designers and storytellers and experts in different fields and students can underestimate students Students are going to continue to drive this forward It is the we are about the next generation as education So now they're also looking into, you know, having a model with multiple labs across campuses And you know similarly like Then many of us a network institution So having your VR lab or VR studio, you know being able to be networked across different campuses And then finally ultimately bringing it to a headset in in whenever asked Wherever our students are and ultimately that belongs to all of us because you know, it doesn't matter whether you're in New York City You and Perish and hi Tokyo It is basically you're going to be connecting in a virtual experience So yes, there is this there is a great opportunities of looking and thinking Of what is going to take place with roomscape learn at the same time I empower you all of you find that project on your campus and drive this timeline That's that is all we can do as creators and educators. Thank you That's a that's a great answer and kelvin We're going to need to bring you back up asking more questions over the next few weeks What you've raised in all seriousness is a really really crucial topic and thank you Maya for the extent to them really If I can just Add here brian I think because the other part of the question is of course sharing resources And that's a real challenge and it is something that the expert panel took a serious look at And you all know here brian knows full well, but I think Just about everyone does that We don't have the best track record in higher education of of open educational resources It's been a real battle And xr experiences are costly to develop 360 video That's fairly simple. You know, you can get a camera for 299 dollars a good camera You can get out there. You can do it. You can have students work on the video I mean, it's relatively straightforward doing that and that actually is a really easy entry point for Community colleges and institutions that don't have a lot of money or finding just find themselves Like which is too many competing priorities right now But you know what a issue is done, of course Is that they've Surmounted that challenge agreeing in and outside partner And I think for all of us we're going to have to look for partners or we're going to have to look for ways to collaborate And of course that ultimately means, you know, you spend all this money on developing this experience Are you going to be willing to share it with other people in higher education other institutions or with You know, even with non academic institutions with nonprofits because that is really really important and Actually the nonprofit organizations right now I think have a better track record in doing that because museums just want a larger audience So, you know here and there museums have actually done really good xr experiences And put them out into the community for others to have but I you know We need to work on that in higher ed and and k12 which is even more challenging because no one's going to have the resources there to Go do it. They're going to have to get it from somewhere else And I don't want to see it all coming from vendors I want to see it coming from us from students from faculty not just from out other companies This is great. Thank you. Emily. I really appreciate that. I'm just yes We need to be more of the shipper. We've got a ton of questions and I'm just shifting them into groups When they come they they respond to some of the things that you both all three of you have been saying Here's one from uh, tom hams This is a great friend of the program. He's coming to us from texas. Thank you for sending us this storm, tom Thanks, tom. Yeah Pandemic accelerated or distracted from the progress of xr But is anyone using xr is a remote learning platform in 2020? I'll put that back up in the screen today's right I think it's down a little bit of books. I was going to say the same thing. It's done both cuts both ways It's been a huge obstacle and it's been a light. Let's light a fire under this and get this going right now So yeah, go ahead by it. You want to add more? I mean as I'm embedded in high education and just um, you know Connecting to a number of different communities across High education including the checks community the champions for higher education part of what I learned, you know People are excited about the opportunity People see this as a moment that we should try really hard. We should try really hard to try to Um showcase the potential of this, um, you know, new world At the same time, there are definitely barriers. There are barriers and you know access to headsets and access to to platforms and access to various tools not every You know, not every field of study is well resource with the right side of content the right side of applications But there's some unique use cases that are coming up There's also this interest where we've kind of actually made the world a little kind of like a little I think The continuum stretched it a little bit in looking at applications that start from things like second life Which is basically a desktop 3d world Two environments, you know passing through virtual environments like some of you know, outspace vr or similar platforms And then going into mixed reality like spatial and others And then moving into like very interesting sort of examples of unique disciplines trying to do something in In sort of on the edge in between whether it's um, you know music whether it's architecture You know whether it's science. So um, that is a that has been good. They're not one solution fits all You know trying there are some obviously platforms that are premium and you know come at a premium But I think ultimately we also have to really bring people alone. This is not just about the technology It is about our faculty students Bringing them in and that is taking still some time It was you know, but we have you know, we have more enthusiasm now that you know, can we go someplace new? And I think that's the opportunity But ultimately we are still a lot of us. I'm sure on this go are working It's how do we bring you know students and faculty, you know to feel comfortably collaborating creating and making in these worlds We have a thank you. That's a it's a really impassioned dance. We're very inspired one We have a quick information question from mike isenberg and the university of washington And he said, um Do you include virtual worlds within the term XR? And I think the answer is yes Yes, yeah Along the lines of your answer maya we had about bringing people along Let me just try something new. We just flashed three questions up in a row They're all the same idea in different ways. I only show one is to hear them uh, jane wild uh from uh, lingfield University asks, you know, how do we do the maximum sensation? And achieve equity. So hold on to that for a second because alongside that um, we have this question from john henry steitz at georgetown Who says uh with furries is really coming out with commercial parking lots for the wi-fi The maestro off right now for our students even have a literal bad To enjoy r and v r so you see how these two are paired and then someone chimed in with this Uh, this is brian mulligan. So we have a whole bunch of brians here Because I appreciate the r and d and a r v r I feel it's too expensive and not yet good value so compared to simple videos simple systems learning on the job You see, I mean the three questions have the pre-fri I say try and i'm Jonathan, do you want to take a whack at this? Um, sure Well, you know going back to the original question about the sort of cross impacts between xr and the pandemic I think the pandemic has really Exposed and magnified a lot of the digital divide issues that have been going on for how Go back as far as you'd like People do not have access to all of the Materials that they need in the way that they need and there are different people in different situations where these things um It's just been a quiet sort of thing and now with uh, everyone sheltering in place these these uh These disparities these inequities are really magnified and uh Yeah, so I mean the xr sort of revolution was Was going to happen about this time anyways and now with a pandemic sort of Overlaid on top of it. It's creating lots of different sort of cross impacts um But uh, the digital divide is a real thing and I think I think members of the xr community are definitely aware of it and Really trying to lower the the barriers look we shared verbela as a platform for our conference um Because it's available on the mac and it's available on the pc you can use it with the vr headsets um It's not a vr platform where you can walk on the surface of the sun or you can manipulate You know a lot of things using the most imaginative capacities or capabilities that xr affords you But that accessibility is very important to us. Can everybody access it? No, you can't access it from a chrome notebook or an ipad because it requires a downloadable executable Um, but I think jumping in there and really trying to work on all of these different issues Is is really important and that's what I that's what I learned is trying to do is to help in some small way to to uh collect the evidence for what works and uh collaborate with all of these different Uh stakeholders from various perspectives to to keep pushing that that envelope Understood good answer. Thank you. Thank you. Emery. Maya. Did you want to argue that? I just I I would just say that the barriers here are so immense. I was reading yesterday and I forget the exact percentage but the number of students in k12 in inner city neighborhoods in new york city that are not even doing remote learning but not going to school Is just absolutely staggering. I mean It's a huge social issue that we've just swept right under the rug right now because They don't have access or they they get a laptop issued by the school system. They don't have the bandwidth to use it It's just or they don't have a place to use it and it's just it's just a it's a god-awful challenge I mean, it's really hard and you know, and then on top of this Hey, we're throwing xr and saying there's this whole another level of technology But as jonathan says, I mean we need to move so fast because we have more coming I mean within a year or two. We're gonna have a our glasses. I mean, that's clear I mean facebook and apple too And we'll do it and probably other companies will too and that's just gonna Exasperate the digital divide even more so We're just you know, we're in a race and we're really far behind But all I can say is we either find a shortcut or we run faster because otherwise We're gonna be even more than fine down the road I think I just want to address because that that sort of context in it's difficult to enter. It's expensive RAD is expensive. That is all true But guess what and that is like there are hundred people here and I expect a hundred projects from you next year Ever the optimist you are Innovation does not happen overnight You have to go back and and talk to your institutions and talk to your faculty Because we can't just wake up and walk into these places. We all need to learn We need to learn how to learn So um, you kind of have to start whether it's a small lab a small team A set of students, but our institutions need to actually build up the know-how Build that build up that understanding to take students and faculty there So, um, you know, while you may not have to have the scale project You know the scale ups project, you know, those projects will definitely deliver value to all of us And it's great that they're taking place in in state and research universities at the same time No matter what level you're working, um, you know starting starting with some experimentation some exploration all in your you know a slab on your campus is important because Yes, um, you know, you actually have to build the capacity within our organization To engage within your team to engage with these technologies So I'm going to say all of the all of these things that right there barrier access accessibility Huge important questions. We're trying to be a champion for them You should be too on your campus and in the world and also I connect with connect with others You know, I brought an example earlier under somebody in the island conference, but I'm going to go back to it You know educate that um your sort of institutions and students that you know the opportunity to create something We every like we have a student from Nigeria Who um, you know joins us in in our informal session meetups and now we're empowering her and as many of you know, there is Lots of not not You know, sort of dramatic things happening in the interior right now And just last friday we discussed about how she can use augmented reality You know to actually power and get messages out to the streets So, you know see see these opportunities don't exist just for the rich and powerful they exist That's right. Thank you. Thank you Completely agree and mine. I think that's one of the great things you do with that that meetup do You know to bring people in from elsewhere because I think it's so important Let me just add here what one of the thing though My big concern in terms of the ethics in this and I spend a lot of time these all my time these days I think thinking about the ethics is that what's going to happen down the road is that There will be an option to get hardware cheaper and it will come at a cost We basically will be at the cost of our personal data And that I you know, I can see that with AR glasses coming out and somebody's saying Yeah, they're 900 dollars, but we'll give them to you for 400 dollars if in return we get you know, what? Um, we all are on our social media platforms. They're free. Why are they free because we are the product and There is no bigger product than knowing where we look and where we move the gaze of our eyes and our actual physical movements So that's something we really have to think about down the road because it's going to be very tempting because you know The people producing this stuff they're aware of these barriers to and aware of the cost and you know It's kind of interesting that facebook came in with the new oculus quest at 299. I thought that was good I want to see it at 99 dollars to me. That is the big breakthrough when we get to 99 But even 299 and you know oculus facebook is now requiring an account to use it So, you know, there's a movement here that we have to be very cognizant of down the road as companies move into the especially into the ar space and start selling glasses because I think there's going to be You know, there's going to be we'll get them to you, but we bought this in return We have uh, thank you. Thank you all and I'm really glad to see us Struggling with this question, especially the next year We have a quick question from michael jones at iwi. We want to know our college bookstores beginning to ship a red xr I think preloaded course content available in the headsets of the oculus quest Now i'm not going to course code to be a next step. Have you seen this? It's usually the you know, it's usually the innovation center um versions of dean of teaching and learning center um You know making center maker spaces and libraries um these are the three common sort of um spaces um oftentimes resources That I see across campuses, but then every so often they're unique opportunities. There's a student club that has them There's a department or a program that may have them So I think there's some variations, but the four sort of I think main channel have been kind of that sort of center innovation center making maker space And and libraries right Yeah, you probably see a little more of this in the k12 environment because there you have companies like lenovo And I've been doing some work with lenovo where where they sell complete kits and everything from a cart and 25 headsets and there they go to a school and they come preloaded with some content And that makes it a little bit easier in that environment to use But even there it's challenging. I remember last year being at a school and and everybody in a room telling me Oh, we got 10 carts and 10s 10 groups of headsets and i'm thinking wow 25 percent 25 percent and they got 10 of them isn't that amazing and then they told me no We have 30 schools. You don't understand. We don't know what we're gonna do Because it wasn't 25 000 student school systems. I go. Oh, no. No, you just that's tip of the iceberg We had We had a couple of quick notes that came in from the chat and quick. I just got questions but notes I wanted to quickly share Robert morgan wanted to recommend frame vr a division of rubella. That's an entirely And then alongside that Carly brady at medicinara technical college says they're building vr simulations on pc right now and john brusho who's here right now as a ceo of the company they're partnering with Acaticus and arch virtual so hello to your john then to cardi yeah We are carly excuse me We have a different question and this is a question that takes us back in time And I need to kind of weigh back machine to this this is from Previous guest and one of the great thinkers and practitioners education and technology Steven downs coming to you from canada And he asks us what about second life? And Aren't we just doing that all over again? What's different besides expensive hardware this time? Uh Well, it's not just expensive hardware We've learned quite a bit and it's important that that project existed when it existed and we're building on top of that Just as you know, as I said, there's even some some reincarnation of these worlds today because of access And because of the possibility of what we can do there as a meeting space um, but we've learned quite a lot and The virtual worlds of today are much more sophisticated and getting more sophisticated every day And it's a completely different thing when you are embodied, you know in a space and you're moving in space um for um for many people that makes marks a big difference In in being actually able to spatially relate to somebody And you know, I kind of being students and others into my living room And here we go in a shared whiteboard and my living room now is a third space So very I would say these projects continue to have an impact And how we think about that at the same time we are in an inflection point We we have to kind of really make free And move into much more spatial computing and spatially orienting things We do yet on the other hand, it's also good and it's a credit to john and to to ilearn in taking on verbella, which is Second life ish if you will different But is in some ways the same because of a recognition that there are barriers to access here And you want to bring in as many people as possible And you don't want to you could set up something that's more immersive But in doing so you also then put up obstacles that people can't get over and You know the the conference was incredibly well attended and that's because it was easily accessible on Practically any kind of device. So, you know, it's just where we are now It's very much a moving target But you know, this is the time to experiment with the more immersive applications because a lot of the companies have said no licensing fees right now because of the pandemic So, you know, you should jump into those while you have the chance because I don't think next year they're going to be as As inexpensive as they are now So, you know, try it out while you have the time, you know, good luck at the positive side of the pandemic here Take advantage of what you can so Yeah, I think what you're saying is totally right on emory then And to the point of you know, is this just the second life thing all over again? I I think in some ways it's reminiscent Of of some of those things, but in another ways it's it's It's orders of magnitude more complex because of the the affordance and constraints the capabilities of what you can now do with all these different xr technologies With augmented reality mixed reality virtual reality Haptic interfaces, etc They're so far beyond what second life could have done back in the in the 2000s And that we need to really compare and contrast those capabilities and constraints the the including expense and including You know access to hardware, etc and being able to line those up and uh Say this is the evidence for what's actually working to be able to help people learn using these various Technologies and then we're kind of scrumming together all of us to be able to highlight those things Which is another way of of providing access because there's a lot of people That would love to be able to understand how to do these things, but they need they need that illumination They need that that community of practice Around these different things and that again is what I learned is trying to be able to Help provide with this report being one major aspect of that the future focus the the here's what's emerging For the technologies and trends the research of course takes several years to Get the hardware get the learning learning situation go in do the research Analyze the data or the evidence and then get it published That's usually a year and a half two years lag So this future focus project kind of helps us to overcome that that gap But it's the it's the community with various houses of application whether it's medical education and healthcare or nature environmental sciences or workforce learning Or k-12 those those different areas of application where there's people working To take those learning Technologies and actually do something for specific learner populations That's where that evidence for those specific contexts is starting to emerge And that that also is is really important. Maya. Maya mentioned the checks the champions for higher education in xr Those we have 140 different institutions from around the world with people that are That are that are taking that on in higher education and and boy, it's just fantastic to have Uh to have those leaders to be able to share and work work on that So we're we're really happy about what's going on there, too Not only is that a great thing This is also a great transition to what will have to be our last question today This is from Roxanne riskman. It is a wonderful friend and a young participant in the program And Roxanne asks, what are your thoughts about using social VR? I've been exploring the three space we are And developing about well being in mindfulness experience. What are you thinking about that? Yeah, I mean, we've been talking we've already been talking a lot about Lots of you know, us talking being about it in the world You know is about social via and you know, whether it's working with avatars in spaces like rebello frame or mozilla hubs We're going into all space. We are And similar via platforms it ultimately Is about the social experience oftentimes and there are you know, there's a great opportunity learning as a social process And so, um, you know, it it gives us an opportunity to really be about it and and you know, create A more meaningful conversations in different types of memories. Frankly when people are in VR They leave the space With the idea that they've just met somebody and they kind of remember them remember where in the room They've met them if they met by the you know by the bar or if they met by the windows So like, um, you know, there's spatial awareness and about and just different ways we relate to each other So, um, a lot of that is happening at the same time There's a lot of movement in understanding especially in the context of future of work in particularly, you know Really understanding skills based task and you know Be that sort of the virtual lab, you know from from medic room engineering to medicine to nursing And and other stem fields. So, um, you know, social is there. It's going to always be there. It's it's a essential part And it's something that we are building on top and bringing these other important parts to education that we do In our classrooms in our lab on our campuses Yeah, and and I think the the whole social VR space has really Gotten a kick from the pandemic because there were some real issues over the past couple years Alt space VR almost went belly up until a last minute reprieve from microsoft VR chat was kind of a wild west that nobody went into Because there just was you know, absolutely no sort of regulation of the community And that's all been toned down and there's a lot of good things going on now in both of those platforms and some of the other ones So it's good to see and I actually spend a lot of time in them these days But um, it's you know, the other side of the coin here, of course, is that social VR requires more bandwidth If you think you require bandwidth for one experience Just try doing it with 20 other people and you suddenly find out that it's you know, either that or you end up stripping it down You end up, you know, having a more simplistic kind of environment like for bella Which is good because at least everybody can join in but the more complex you make it the more realistic you make it And the bandwidth just skyrockets But it's where we are right now and you know as the headsets get better and um, you know I hope the bandwidth gets better than this is going to become an increasing factor as Maya said Education is ultimately a community social experience. It's not just an individual one And that's right. Speaking of community experience We actually have to pause our community experience because you're right Yeah And I have to say this has been fantastic You three have looked at a fantastic report that we need to We need to work with everyone we've been talking about And we've all shared so much great so much great work. I mean, uh, johnson the island network And I Maya of course you work at the news school. I just shared a link to that on in the chat What's the best way to keep up with each of you johnson? I assume it's through the island site Yep, the island website And and you know from the various initiatives there subscribe if you're a member you should be getting our newsletter that comes out and we'd love to collaborate with you all and I love futurists You Best way to keep up with you is I see with digital bodies and digital bodies done that I try to write two or three times a week. Sometimes I'm uh, have a little trouble keeping up with that Sometimes I do more so I do as much as I can so and you know And please send suggestions for articles ideas comments. We'd love to hear your feedbacks Indeed and Maya is is twitter the best way to stalk you Uh, twitter linkedin is a good way to Um, you know x reality center at the news school. Yeah And course in school design. Yes. Well, thank you. Thank you three for being fantastic fantastic Uh, this is a deep deep subject and you've just driven so far into it We just in the last couple of minutes. We've gotten a slew of people pointing us to uh, a blockchain based distributed VR network Talking about microsoft. I'm sorry mozilla hubs Face the horizon and there's more and more to this. I think we need to return this spring And and follow up because we clearly have a lot to talk about a lot will be changing Thank you all. Thank you all But don't go away yet friends. I've got to show you what's happening over the next Over the next couple of weeks. It sounds like a long time But we actually have a lot to cover and let me thank everybody for all the questions that you raised Which are just absolutely terrific again Your questions your comments really drive us and really show What the community can do So just to let you know that looking ahead. We have a few sessions on the work life covid balance We have a session on pedagogy. We have a session on accrediting agencies Which are crucial kind of dark matter for higher ed We have at least one session on education technology Now we have lots of ways to keep this conversation going If you'd like us to look into verbella for more conversations or any of these other platforms Let me know But we have a whole bunch of social media sites for you to dig into Especially twitter using the hashtag ftte If you'd like to look back into our past programs including my and emory's previous Sessions as well as our conversations about all kinds of technology Just go to tiny world.com slash ftf archive and you can dive back in there And if you'd like, please stay in touch ftte.us will give us our reports shunig.com for the technology And for me, thank you all for all of your attention today all of your thoughts all of your questions It's great to hear from you. Please take care be safe during this incredibly crazy session And we'll hopefully see you soon. Bye. Bye