Into the Metaverse: A Dive into Technology and Its Future in India
In a nutshell, an ideal Metaverse is a hybrid of the physical and digital worlds. It operates in real time, is interoperable, and is decentralized.
Because of the scope of the metaverse, many tech titans such as Meta (Facebook until recently), Apple, and Nike have spent billions of dollars on metaverse development.
Others further down the chain, such as Polytrade, a cryptocurrency and blockchain-based trade financing platform, are developing products to address challenges such as payments and transactions.
WHAT IS METAVERSE?
The first stumbling block in my self-education journey was defining the Metaverse. Many explanations are riddled with technical jargon, are perplexing, or are so abstract that I couldn’t tell the aspirational from the real.
According to the Future Today Institute’s 2021 Tech Trends report, “by most definitions, the Metaverse encompasses all AR, virtual realms, and the internet.” But that seems overly simplistic and broad, so I dug deeper.
The Metaverse is essentially a virtual online world where avatars (virtual representations of real people) can connect, play, work, communicate, and socialize. It is the meeting of the real (physical) and digital (online) worlds. If you’ve read the book or seen the movie Ready Player One, you know what it could be.
EDUCATION MEETS METAVERSE
When education lags behind technological advances, technology, rather than educators, defines what constitutes educational opportunity. This is largely what happened with the introduction of “educational” apps designed for use on adult-oriented smartphones and tablets. Today, while the metaverse infrastructure is still being built, researchers, educators, policymakers, and digital designers have an opportunity to lead the way rather than get swept up in the current. We need new ways to connect the physical world with augmented and virtual reality (VR) experiences in order to fully realise the metaverse’s potential as a 3D, global, interconnected, immersive, and real-time online space.
A VISION
Consider a circular classroom that is surrounded by white boards and is filled with movable chairs. Energized students are captivated by tales of Greek myths, the power of Zeus, the god of the sky, and stories of the legendary Hercules, his son.
Suddenly, a timeline appears in the centre of the floor. Children whisk away their chairs to stand in the present, ready to travel back in time and descend into the year 300 BC, where they will encounter a new reality. They enter the Greek cultural metaverse. Carts buzz by, traders in marketplaces surround them, and from atop the hill, they can see the temples of the gods and the people who worship them for the first time. They investigate, they inquire, they ponder, and they learn!
Emerging technologies and higher education
Higher education’s future is more about hyperpersonalization, with data science, metaverse, and cybersecurity solutions. In the expanding ecosystem of digital spaces, networks, and metaverses, our daily activities and interactions in both the physical and virtual worlds will be influenced. This already has implications for higher education because of how learners can access it, how information is created, and how learners will interact and connect with one another.
Published By – Pawan Rajput
Edited By – Mahi Gupta
