17 September 2023 by Mondo2.0

Immersive learning: digital education

Seven years ago I published an article on Mondoduepuntozero entitled “Hopping: reading by jumping” in which I highlighted new, non-sequential reading dynamics resulting from the massive use of the Internet and from the need, personal or professional, for many of us to operate in multi-tasking mode.

Today, after a period that on the Internet timescale is a geological era, the information surplus that reaches us every day is evident; consequently, each of us has independently developed personal strategies to get around pop-ups, videos, privacy notices, and unwanted social posts and groups.

Strategies that are now an integral part of the way we select and read and that have probably also had important effects on the way we think.

These strategies have side effects: in all of us, not only the youngest, they result in a reduced ability to pay attention to and learn a text in its entirety, to fully grasp the relationship between information (which on the Internet, thanks to hypertexts and hashtags, was supposed to be a strength), to retain these concepts over the long term, and to read an entire printed book.

Let us be clear, I am not here to demonize the Internet: the spread of meeting platforms, the presence online of groups, often transnational, sharing through hashtags, open-access databases, interactive whiteboards, … examples that tangibly demonstrate the digital contribution to reducing distances and spreading knowledge.

But, there is always a but, it is also evident that today online learning, digital education, has not managed to reach full maturity, either in terms of use or tools.

Can digital tools, hardware and software, encourage and support learning, teaching, and the acquisition of knowledge even over the long term?

I found an answer in the book “Futuri possibili” by Lorenzo Capannari, which describes the benefits of immersive learning, a text that opened my eyes to the infinite possibilities inherent in innovative, non-traditional digital education.

Improving the educational offer? Two possible directions to follow:

  • A return to Slow reading: enhancing the role of traditional “printed texts”, our dear old books, with exercises aimed at maintaining attention and focus on the text, taking notes alongside the text, for sequential and exhaustive reading.
  • The use of digital tools and spaces capable of describing concepts and content in an immersive context, today through a headset, tomorrow most likely through very lightweight VR/AR glasses.

Between us, after studying the subject in depth, I definitely bet “on red”, that is, on the possibility of learning through this new generation of tools. This is both because of the level of involvement that these immersive environments can guarantee and because of what has emerged from my observations of hopping dynamics and digital engagement: increasingly rapid, interactive, demanding and impatient modes of use, rarely compatible with the thoughtful and patient reading of a printed book.

In support of immersive learning we find:

  • The possibility of learning in an immersive digital context. For users with a digital culture, a rapidly growing target, an all-encompassing experience can be interesting and engaging: it is very difficult to become distracted, it is very difficult to go elsewhere.
  • The user can choose what to explore and where to go; in general, immersive simulations, including for educational purposes, are “non-linear” and allow the user to follow a personal path, interact and choose.
  • Conversely, teachers can create environments, model them and evolve them according to users’ needs and actual behaviour, even during the course of study, even during actual “real-time” use.
  • Immersive teaching often allows simulations and experiments, including activities that are not possible or are “at risk” in the real world. It is possible to repeat the exploration in the event of errors without particular consequences.

I would like to point out a paradox: I am proposing that you use immersive tools with a high level of interaction, and at the same time I state that they are based on the ancient principle of “we learn from our mistakes”; not everything that is new is completely new.

  • I also highlight the very strong technological, visual and usage affinity between this new generation of immersive educational tools and video games. There is no better way to involve a student than through a familiar 3D digital habitat. A habitat in which, another paradox, the new generations have fewer prejudices about use than toward what teachers usually propose in the real world.
  • An immersive space can offer multimaterial content: texts, images, audio and video. A mix that, if created by expert teachers and/or communication experts, can provide important added value both in perceptual terms and for retaining concepts and experiences over the long term.

Within a few years, perhaps five years, “immersive learning” will become an integral part of every student’s educational path. To tell the truth, this important change is not exactly around the corner, for the following reasons:

  • The technological evolution of headsets has important “pros” in improving the user experience and in the progressively reduced purchase costs of the hardware but, at the same time, makes purchased devices obsolete: we are in a phase of constant evolution, of re-factoring.
  • The headsets currently available occupy our visual space, ask for our complete trust and willingness to neutralize our perception of the real world (completely or partially); this is not always possible, especially for those who are not digital natives.
  • Today there is no generation of digital teachers capable of designing and configuring digital spaces in the best possible way. This type of professionalism needs to mature.
  • It is often necessary to support users and guarantee the correct management and maintenance of the hardware; these support costs are difficult for public institutions to manage.

For these reasons, “early adopters” are often private companies or universities carrying out research and experimentation; for these same reasons, the spread of immersive learning tools and strategies has not yet taken place on a widespread basis.

My personal digital experience, in digital curation and the creation of virtual spaces for cultural institutions, allows me to fully perceive the difficulty of abstracting, anticipating and positioning objects, concepts, images, audio and video.

The solution? Probably A.I. tools will help us design hardware, experiences, lessons and simulators in immersive environments. Innovation will help innovation.

A.I. and immersive learning
there really is a lot in the works

Mondoduepuntozero

Want to know more? I invite you to read the chapter “Entropy on the Web: Noise, noise, noise” in my recently published book “Ovunque Internet”, a text that, for now, deliberately, is available only in print because, between us as always, I bet on digital but still believe deeply in traditional reading.