 Welcome to you joining us today for this presentation on teaching tactics in virtual worlds. We'll be looking at how emerging technology can help bring us together in new and satisfying ways. My name is Steve Vanhoek. I'm an educator and researcher, and that's what we'll consider today is research and results in virtual world education. No one is trying to sell you anything. Here is a brief overview of our agenda and a little bit about me. You can check it out later in the PDF slide file if you like. It's on my research website there at the bottom of the screen, www.mr.us. I'll share that link again later. We have lots to cover, so let's just jump right in. I presented on this topic for the Science Circle about a year ago, how COVID might impact education and our delivery of it, but there was a big question mark after just about every sentence. Now there's not so many question marks, but there are some pretty big exclamation points. We are likely to see some changes from what we've gone through over the last two or so years as we try to find a new normal, but it's safe to guess we're not going back to the way things were before. So let's look at how things might be. Let's see what a London-based Global Health Foundation is saying. COVID is not going away around the world anytime soon, and we need to learn how to cope with it, thinking and planning and coming to grips with new ways of living, they say. And those of us in the United States should keep in mind that more than 95% of the world is not us, and we need to care about that if nothing else we are all impacted by global supply chain disruption. I'll be sharing some data and resources as we go. Much of all that comes from this assortment of articles in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Education, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the BBC, and other credible sources. I'll also be sharing links to additional research resources and some of the slides as we go, and you can get those links if you download a PDF of these slides, and you can find it on my academic website. I'll give a link to that at the end. I'll be focusing primarily on U.S. news and issues, since that's where I'm here in California, and if it's happening here in academia, it's likely happening elsewhere or at least the fallout from it. Now, here are two interesting articles from a recent edition of Inside Higher Education. COVID cuts and international travel have impacted educational exchanges between young creative students all around the world, and that's just such a loss. Organizers are trying out different online platforms to increase and improve international collaboration for students, and also virtual job recruiting programs are reaching out to populations of historically marginalized college graduates. They're also looking at technological alternatives to do that better. Now, many are talking about the metaverse and figuring out how to stake a claim in it. Here are 10 companies, according to Gizmodo. They might actually survive all the hype and recoil. You can check out this story. It's got some great backgrounds and tactics of each of the companies, and you can get that by clicking the link in the slide file. I will take you to Gizmodo, and of course, way up at the top of the list is, of course, Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook, and it's great to see that immersive virtual world efforts are so newsworthy. Well, that's a good thing. Mark Zuckerberg calls it the holy grail of social experiences, and it's hard to argue with that. However, one virtual world long timer says the recent metaverse announcement wasn't all that innovative or inducing. Some of us have been there, done that two decades ago. He says, just check out the difference between the Facebook meta avatar and the contrast to a sophisticated avatar in second life. I just love that. You've got to be kidding look on her face. She's been there and done that 20 years ago. I'd suggest that if virtual world learning is conflated with the metaverse debate, it might ultimately do us harm. We're not saying people should perpetually live in a digital world, but for the times we do, where would you rather spend an hour of lecture? Well, Zoom is also trying to offer an immersive experience. It's there along with the speaker or gallery view options in Zoom, if you have experience toasting Zoom sessions. To me, it looks like one of those cut out stand-up signs where you stick your face through the hole. And why would people want to do this? It already don't want to share their video and audio in regular Zoom meetings. I've led hundreds of Zoom sessions, and I just don't see that working. But Zoom really deserves some credit, though, for stepping up and stepping in in a crisis. We can certainly do better. And we do do better. Case in point is with all the science circle presentations that have been going on for a decade now in virtual worlds, it's a true testament really to what virtual worlds can do consistently with clear vision and good intent, and an impressive immersive experience. You really owe it to yourself to give it a try if you haven't yet. We have this wonderful and real sense of place. There's context, proportion, exploration, tactile, interactivity, and even games. And we don't get that in a Zoom class where every square, flat face is in your face, and it's just exhausting. Much of the time, we're talking to a room of shadow silhouettes in Zoom. I've also just built a new virtual world educational region taking advantage of some of the special nonprofit rates that are available. And this is designed to serve first and likely only timers in a virtual world for single session seminars. And simplicity is the key for that. It's just set up so they can just land and walk a little bit and then sit in the auditorium. There are minimal clicks, no poses, no automatic note cards, and that's to minimize the cognitive overload and system freeze. Those of us who find it easy enough now, well, we might remember just how overwhelming it was our first time in. Sometimes the most difficult educators to appeal to are the ones who have already tried virtual worlds and had too many challenges or unpleasant experiences, and they're not too eager to come back. Well, yes, there are some nasty and abusive stuff going on, just like in the real world. But there are also wonderful free concerts and exhibits and lectures and experiential learning opportunities. And just like the real world, it's a freedom of choice and everyone gets the opportunity to choose where they're going to gravitate towards. And this new region isn't so much to serve the educators that are already here in virtual worlds, but to help bring them in for the first time. And it's meant as an example of why to come and teach in virtual worlds. There are some useful resources at the landing, the very helpful virtual world educators manual by Gregory Perrier, and also some landmarks to sample in world campuses. If you want to see what other people are doing, you can zap me an email and I will send you some directions on how to log in and get here. There's really nothing new happening interactive and immersive world to been around for decades, tapping old technologies, teaching and touching engaging people where they live with an immersive connection. There was a show called Winky Dink that started way back in the 1950s. Bill Gates praised it as the very first interactive television program. And you had this magic screen on your TV set and you would draw on it and you could become engineers and tacticians and part of the program drawing in bridges and ropes and cages to help save the day and encourage children to be innovative and creative problem solvers and those of us who couldn't afford the 50 cents for the mail away magic screen what we just drew right on the TV and of course gotten trouble for that. The Gumby Show in the 60s, well that led us breakthrough flat dimensional world of physical books and into rich worlds of living claymated imagination and my favorite were the space travels. I'd still hear that theme song in my head here 40 years later. And then there was the inner space ride at Disneyland and that shrunk us down to subatomic size so we could oh we could ride through molecules and atoms of a snowflake and suddenly there was the red pulsating nucleus and is anybody here old enough to remember that that was a number of decades ago and you know we're doing similar exhibits right now in virtual worlds aren't we. And movies picked up on this as well shrinking us down to cellular size to traverse a human body in the film fantastic voyage it's still worth a watch and it's just it's a natural inclination of children and students and even we jaded academes we we don't want to just observe something we want to experience it we don't want to just look through the window we want to become part of it and share that experience with others and even at just seven or eight years old I felt this was the way education should be. Second life founder Phil Rosendale said recently that one reason virtual worlds have proven so attractive to educators and students is our desire for company and experience in learning we want to look at each other and see facial expressions and gestures even if we're just sitting alone at our desk and it's not just our desire for a sense of other but also our desire for a sense of place. Immersion is more than educational it can also be formational and foundational it's a low stakes experiment with modeling behavior. Here's a interesting article on cosplay and the power of pretend they call it it tells how heroic stories and pretend experiences create an emotional response of elevation and there's a link on the story if you want to dig deeper into into what that's about for example in a virtual reality study those who were given the power of flight like a superhero were significantly more likely to be helpful than those who simply got to fly around as a passenger in a helicopter they they got to feel a little of how a superhero feels in flight and that's elevation that's what they call elevation that experience here's another example studies show when people have an immersion into someone else's experience it increases an empathic response so they can experience what it's like to switch gender or races or to experience life in a war zone or a wheelchair and this could be helpful in human resources sensitivity training for example a virtual immersion also provides a sense of place which is one of the most memorable aspects of an education years after their education it's the imagery the remains the taste of the experience. Albert Einstein said it's that flavor of education that we remember once we forgotten everything else we learned in school and it's it's really sad to strip that flavor away with a tasteless online course especially from those who may have never had a chance to attend a real-life campus. New technologies are going to make that experience even more immersive and realistic tickling all our senses literally Mark Zuckerberg has been thinking about the merging of virtual worlds and education for a long time even spent two billion dollars for Oculus with the immersive goal back in 2014. I got one of those early Oculus headsets and played with it for a while my quintessential millennial did too we played some games and some educational programs and we put it all down after about an hour really and haven't played with it much since we felt the same way about 3d movies I bought the special glasses and the 3d player and custom tv and all the 3d dvds but you know we quickly got tired of that too we we still love the movies we just don't need to take it that far it's not just the movies it's the theater and the coming together and sometimes the tech just gets in the way of that I think certainly new technology may make virtual worlds even more accessible on our smartphones and pads right now there are more than 6 billion mobile phones globally 5 billion of them in developing countries according to the world bank cell phones are becoming ever cheaper and network bandwidth is doubling every 18 months and expanding into rural areas worldwide internet enabled tablets are the fastest ramping device around the world and solar powered tablets are especially promising in areas where electricity is iffy and as we consider technological access we also have to consider socially appropriate access how can we connect with a global student body in ways that are inclusive and engaging well by necessity we will typically use english as our common language 25 percent of the world speaks it at least conversationally as a second language but we should also consider a cross culturally resonant context culturally inclusive case studies and discussion topics and by finding our common ground around the world well we come to better appreciate and respect and enjoy one another's differences it's also useful to consider that trans cultural tactics apply to subcultures as well within any national culture you'll likely find lots of those young and old subcultures rich and poor right and left politics and these tactics can also help bridge those divisions and you can find a link to my unesco article on trans cultural learning and that is in the slides pdf it's there on my research website and you know over 20 years i've developed and designed online and on-ground undergrad and graduate courses for ucsb ucla california lutheran university ls university national and elsewhere more than half of the courses i've taught or online so the place has been limited especially recently to a learning platform whether it's blackboard or canvas or collaborate or brightspace or whatever they provide a sense of gathering but not a sense of place so much so it's given me a sense of what works what administrators are looking for what students like even those those aren't often the same thing and for 15 years i've been experimenting with virtual world education builds for a few years of the science circle let me huddle in a corner where i set up some sample learning demonstrations and i've been pitching these virtual world possibilities to my colleagues and administrators for for a dozen years and you know i agree with many of the critics right from the start that learning in virtual worlds can be a poor substitute for the real life thing no doubt about that i wish everyone around the world could join me in a classroom at kirkhoff hall on the ucla campus what a beautiful building that is as these korean students did it's a gorgeous building and it reeks of the finest academic trappings and tradition and the ideal learning environment if we could do it would be a diverse and well appointed campus serving all comers with fully equipped classrooms and reasonable numbers of students in the class and justly compensated instructors but this unfortunately is not where it's at and it's certainly not where we're heading it's also been said that the ideal teaching environment is socrates on one end of a log and a student on the other well that's not going to happen either we can't even build enough simple classrooms at least in the developing world for millions if not billions of inspiring learners so we well intentioned and practical educators well we turn to technology to fill the gaps as we have for decades before and this is what's happening in academia over the many months since the kovat crisis began but it's been more of a morphing than a revolution or a redesign the transformational forces were already in play a lower state funding a demographic dip in enrollments administrators stressing over budget cuts and program reductions that's nothing new however up to a 30 percent of a university's revenue comes from dorms and dining boy that's been a big loss over the last months one dean got in trouble for using kovat to further cut into 10 year and shove higher paid professors out he said why waste a good a good pandemic he said right before he got a lashing in the media there are forces simmering and expanding for decades now what we see here and now the the blinds on many of our social systems are being lifted everywhere and we can see clear just what's behind the curtain here are some interesting innovative steps that have been taken at the university's where i teach after kovat closed the ucla campus early in the crisis they put up a virtual campus in minecraft and i was interesting to look at but i don't think they've done much with it it was paid for out of the brulean gaming fund and that seems indicative of something and at national university they're working on an artificial intelligence program to help engage students better in online classes and the goal is to better engage in the course discussions and tasks and to provide students with artificial intelligence suggestions on how to do better and this may help instructors focus more on other tasks and resources but it may also worry some that it's a short step between augmenting educators and replacing them all together i believe the best way to serve our students is to better understand them and in the 20 years that i've been teaching the largest group the largest cohort of students working their way through the program have been millennials they were just turning 19 when i started at ucsb back in 2000 i have a quintessential millennial living in my home right now and as an aging hippie from the 70s i felt a special affinity with the millennials their older siblings seemed more focused on careers and earnings well the mental millennial seemed more focused on issues and they have this get over it attitude towards racism and sexism and intolerance and bullying that that i really admire their spirit of change and possibility i think we we need to better understand this new generation if we're going to serve them well here's just a few interesting bits those in the upper economic tiers of millennials are about to hear it some 30 trillion dollars from the retiring and expiring boomers over the next decade and more and more millennial errors are saying they don't want that uber wealth news reports tell how many of them plan to give much of it away including the real estate and the art and the jewels and no doubt that's a harsh news to their elders and all this coincides as well with this great bulk of millennials and ginsers who are unable to find well-paying jobs with any kind of future and many are solemn and depressed with high rates of drug abuse and self-harm not everyone wants our needs to go to school but for those who do we can make learning more accessible and more inclusive more engaging more relevant even even more fun and if predictions hold true with rapid leaps in healthcare such as 3d printing of major organs and nano robotic surgery and better levels of nutrition around the world millennials and their near-generational core core hearts well they may live hundreds of years and may be the dominant demographic for centuries to come and we should teach them well by the year 2050 some futurologists and economists say that artificial intelligence and robots replacing workers it may well entrench a new breed of people a useless class of those not just unemployed but unemployable there's a link to the guardian report on this slide here if you've downloaded the file someone said it's not that they're born with two strikes against them that's so unfair it's that they don't even get a third pitch it's also it's interesting to see that as a substitute for employment they predict that virtual reality worlds might provide people with far more excitement and emotional engagement than the real world outside these virtual worlds well they also provide a sense of place and belonging that is so important to student success and retention so much of the college experience is not sitting in a classroom we can do that just about as well online the students are also looking to mix and mingle and play and party and experiment and socialize and that's what they might remember and ultimately benefit from the most the more that we can connect with them in the context of place well the longer they may stay connected with us here are some key takeaways from a webinar with Philip Rosdale he's the the CEO of high fidelity and founder of linden labs and also there was tech evangelist Robert Scoble and they were previewing some emerging emerging technologies such as a sansar back then and when asked about educational uses of the new 3d immersive technology well they gave an in-depth response you can find a link to the video in session notes on the slide here students already use augmented reality and virtual reality glasses to learn repair of for example million dollar caterpillar tractors and bowing jet engines with virtual overlays or they may take a meeting in yosemite add a finger snap and study principles of gravity between planets by actually flying through the universe and visualize complex equations in math and physics and chemistry with 3d models but they say the costs of virtual world design may not come cheap to bring that all about the budget for the video game grand theft alone with some 400 million dollars and effective virtual world learning experiences will also be costly but the costs for virtual world teaching and simply hanging out and giving talks on stage these simple and inexpensive ideas are going to carry the day where the physicality of place and manipulate manipulating with your hands is just magical uh say scobal uh and rose dough well here are a few suggestions uh to those designing virtual worlds and technology for educators as we get ready for a showtime well first it's time to polish everything up and get ready for closer scrutiny online learning is only going to grow now that we've seen the need and the service it can provide many students may not yet like on learning but more and more of them are starting to demand it the educational platforms and programs that we use need to better understand the demands of academia old stodgy administrators who who don't understand the tech and just want to go back to the old ways and the limited funds available and the overhead demand on students and educators to learn new skills and the title line horrors over privacy and harassment in virtual worlds as well as simple performance standards universities need to cover for accreditation these are issues we very much need to understand and address I've been pitching virtual world learning to administrators for some 15 years and this is typically what they reply that there's just too much development time and costs too high of a learning curve for teachers and students with too little practical use what we need we need the accessibility of skype where a single step gets you to where you need to be and we need the creative and simple filters of tiktok for design we need the functionality of zoom where slides and video and audio files are easily shared with a single click some of that is already happening and we also need to counter what may be a gaining a bias virtual world learning may not be a game in the mind of its users but others don't always see it that way and I say so what now learning can be fine fun and gamified my god daughter recommended that I try the language app do olingo not long ago now I'd studied two years of russian in college and lived about five years in russia in ukraine speaking the language but I forgotten most of it but I relearned lots of grammar and vocabulary in just two weeks on this app it's fun it's engaging and certainly educational and I've got no financial stake in this at all I watch my god daughter play video games often monster hunter league of legend cyberpunk and she sure seems to spend a lot of time just running from place to place and exploring in these games and she says well that's what makes it fun this sense of place and space unfortunately we've also seen that the new technologies aren't always doing what they hope they would students were given access to network computers to enhance learning but a duke university study found that test scores in reading and math were actually falling and students in the one laptop per child program were spending more time on games and chat and less on actual studies and we must work harder to bridge the digital divide especially between rich and poor countries mostly split between northern and southern hemispheres and also between rich and poor communities and we need to make sure the digital divide isn't further compounded by the content divide we need appropriate course materials that connect and resonate across national cultural economic boundaries and that's an issue long dear to me and yes development is very expensive but somebody is going to do it there are many government programs around the world supporting better access to education here's just a few of those and there are some supporting foundations and familiar names out there gates jobs a sailor and schools may also well be shifting money from lowering classroom and facility costs to new and better online options and we need to see the big picture and not just the view from our own perch we need to appreciate the practical realities of administrators something that we teachers don't always do and we also need to understand the desires and needs of our younger students they're facing a very different world and future than we did and we have to nurture the creative abilities and aspirations of educators and not just treat them like machine cogs and we need to embrace the ultimate possibilities and immediate limitations of learning technologies and everything else we need to do is just simply about teaching and learning and using all that we already know to its fullest and we've done well at adapting to this virus crisis in so many ways it's really been inspiring to see just what we can do when we must and so here we are in a difficult spot of preparing for a future still so much in the fog well here's a couple bits of advice on what we might do first from a troll who says well we can't see the future we should simply do the next right thing those are good words to live by and here's some advice from a 10-year sea captain it's something I tell my passengers before we depart here on the slide there's a crew of German students from an international program at UCSB and I tell them keep one hand on the boat keep one hand on yourself and keep a weather eye on the horizon because yes we need to be very aware of our immediate times and environment for sure but if we don't watch the horizon for the subtle shifts in what's coming well we could wind up really really wet and that's it thank you so much for coming here's a link to my research website it's at www.mr.us and you can find a pdf of the slides in this presentation with all their active links and hopefully we'll be back in another year to then discuss well how the world has gone from question marks and exclamation points to maybe more low-key commas and periods as we find ever better ways to reach out and teach others