Integrating physical-and-virtual-learning-spaces

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What is a Metaverse?

A Metaverse consists of 3D worlds offering persistent immersive and interactive spaces.

Educators can use a Metaverse to support engaging, meaningful, and interactive activity among learners with each other, with content, and with instructors. Interactive activity can take the form of Single- and Multiple-player Education Role Playing Games (SPERPGs and MPERPGs) supporting learning simulations. Activities can also include in-world meetings supported by voice, text, and a variety of media (e.g., video, education broadcasts) and virtual technologies (e.g., surveys, quizzes,

Integrating Physical and Virtual Learning Spaces

Micro-learning Sims Using IoT and Raspberry Pi

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What are applications for IoT

with the AU Metaverse?

The Internet-of-Things (IoT) offers the means to interconnect devices across physical and virtual learning spaces. Advantages include the means to support ubiquitous use of multiple devices spanning physical classroom spaces and virtual environments supporting learning simulations. For example, an instructor can give verbal commands within the physical classroom for rubric assessments, reporting/summarizing aggregate virtual sim performance data in support of learning analytics and classroom discussions.

Raspberry Pi offers the means to pair and package OS systems, connected IoT devices with virtual learning sims.



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How does the integrated physical

and virtual environment work? Interconnected IoT devices can send and receive data through API gateways used to relate devices with data transmission, storage, and retrieval. This provides benefits for sharing, aggregating, and reporting learning performance data using a variety of devices spanning physical and virtual spaces.

The Raspberry Pi offers the means to inexpensively support packaged integrated learning environments uniquely suited for particular learning purposes and activities. For example, micro SD cards can contain the entire set of OS, software applications, and device connection protocols. Rapidly switching between packaged learning applications is as simple as switching out the SD card on the



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Learning Applications

Virtual learning simulations can be packaged for micro-level applications (e.g., micro-courses) whereby the expected learning activity, making use of the sim, is designed to support interactive model-based reasoning (MBR) learning.

MBR applications in virtual environments offers the means to support interactivity with 3D models for learners to predict, act, and observe actions. Visibility of 2nd and 3rd-order effects from actions are particularly useful for helping learners to develop deeper levels of understanding between constructs and representation in models. This level of understanding is important to higher-order critical thinking skills and complex problem solving.

