Communication technology continues to evolve, and innovation brings with it new places to live in. For example, the internet has gone through several stages which have progressively increased bandwidth, and thus the data richness of communication. Video as a personal communication tool, has only recently become ubiquitous to smart phone platforms, as bandwidth has increased. (high quality video cameras in smart phones also a factor). That then creates a new place to inhabit, and to understand its effects on who we are in that place…and the ways and means of learning “there”.
The recent announcement by Verizon of 5G Internet to the Home, is a harbinger of yet another stage of bandwidth enabled new places, because it has enough bandwidth to support real time AR and VR, and has very very low latencies.
Verizon says that its 5G home Internet service provides download speeds of 300Mbps to nearly 1Gbps with very low latency and has no data caps or throttling. The fixed 5G service uses a router in the home and, in some cases, also requires an exterior antenna on the home.
5G to the home is one thing, 5G as mobil bandwidth is another, and will take longer to arrive. And there’s also the present imbalance in upload and download speeds, as telecom ISP define them.
Ubiquitous personal video creates a new communication space/ place which tends to place text and other “literate”forms of communication in a new encompassing package, opening up something humans have never had before, ie a visual language of moving pictures as a type of common language, that is also sourced and originated by the common man in a many to many universe.
Ubiquitous AR and VR will open their own new place of communication and related perception changes. This is already underway in the gaming world of VR space and group real time “play”, as some already have the internet bandwidth necessary to participate. In a sense, the gaming world of group real time play is a model of the new place for learning, as everyone shares an environment, and has input which can become, someday, as rich as video input is today. Gaming is now becoming a true VR experience as players use head mounted VR goggles, and bandwidth increases.
Greater bandwidth will enable richer “inputs” by players, along the lines of selfie video broadcast online to potentially millions in real time. IOW, the VR and AR worlds will become richer and richer new places, with ever increasing resolutions and real time “mods” of the VR spaces that are enabled by AI. That’s going to change us a lot too, because the VR space is a modularity that blends human and AI, creating new perception MO, and new roles, new personas, new understandings of who we are.
That’s a lot to “keep up with and develop the new potentials ” for status quo educational institutions, as well as individuals who teach in the field, who have been trained according to various 19th and 20th century learning theories, and will need additional training for teaching/learning/facilitating in “new places”.
from Ars Technica
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