Story in Atlantic that talks about next stages in “Virtual Reality” technology, and it’s integration into everyday life. Quotes Second Life founder Rosedale talking about his new venture’s support for “education”:
“My own prediction is that what we’re doing with High Fidelity will have its first uses in experiential education in ways we’ve not seen,” he said. “Unlike Second Life, the technology is here today to do… things we weren’t able to do before, and one is to let people talk to each other with their faces and body language – that’s teaching.”
Rosedale says there’s no magical particles connecting people in a face to face situation… so theoretically a virtual situation could have all the humanness.
Well, there’s some things going on in reality that we don’t fully understand, and one might be able to posit that the way our brains/ bodies/ minds “constructs” reality in conjunction with others in a face to face situation does exceed our conscious ability to “monitor”…to the point where we might use a word like “magical” to describe what occurs.
Then there’s the favorite sci fi plot staple about how machines don’t have emotions…and that existence loses a great deal, or all, of it’s meaning, if there’s not a living breathing sensing human at the core of the experience. So no matter how virtual we get, it’s never simply a matter of one machine connecting with another.
Conversely, the surprising thing is that media, as McLuhan taught, are extensions of our senses, and that we can “connect” on profound levels using media that isn’t all that rich in sensual data.
Yet vision and hearing are just two of our five senses, and touch is a really big one. Not to get too deep into this here, but when teaching adult ed classes in Hawaii, I was told to touch the students during class… walk around the room, and put my hand on student’s shoulders, or my arm around their shoulders even… Because that would enhance the learning environment for the students.
We as yet, can’t replicate that online.
He got money from Google ventures, but some of the comments don’t tie to my version of reality.
He says “Educators are clever and innovative and they try things,”
Well, “they” may be clever and they may try things, but the institution is highly resistant to change — come on.
Education in US, and Healthcare, are gigantic “things” that encompass huge numbers of people “working in the field”. So perhaps, while there’s huge resistance to change in both of these “things” or “fields” or whatever we call them, there’s also a “disturbance in the force” through cloud tools, and maybe Rosedale is trying to work in that “rip in the time/space continuum” with a little salesmanship. =^)
IOW, Rosedale, and Thrun over at Udacity, are trying to find those elements to work with that do try things and embrace innovation. As big as US is, those change agents add up to a substantial group. And as you point out Gary, it’s a challenge ongoing…we may be in the co-opting stage of change, where the powers that be attempt to absorb and re-orient change to support the status quo instead of undermining it.
As regional school administrator said, and I’m paraphrasing, “Damned if I’m going to get outcompeted at my own game”
One thing is true, and isn’t going away: education and healthcare in the US are far too costly per outcome, as well as ever more inequitable…..and innovation and change through cloud tools are going to continue to be the best solution available. How that works out VS the entrenched powers that be, in both these fields, will be a bumpy flight, with lots of twists and turns in the narrative.