Why the Educational Metaverse Is Not All About Virtual Reality Apps.

This paper explores how the Metaverse can be used in the context of learning and collaboration. In it we seek to dispel the story that the Metaverse is just another synonym for Virtual Reality and future technology. Instead we will argue that the Metaverse is another interface scaffolding story akin to an interaction metaphor and can be used in an analogous manner to that of the Desktop Metaphor. How it is rendered in reality is a very flexible implementation detail. Instead, it should be thought of as a conceptual space and as an information sharing channel. As long as you are engaging in the Metaverse conceptually you can be there practically and in reality. As such it can be a low bandwidth and/or a high bandwidth information superhighway, depending on the specific mode of interaction. The use of metaphor and sharing has been with us a long time in learning technology and shared/collaborative interaction. So it is wrong to put down the aims and objectives of the Metaverse for Education as just an exercise in expensive high bandwidth Virtual Reality. It is not something that is based on technology for technology’s sake. It clearly has a role for those with access to advanced technologies, bandwidth, and hardware. In this paper we will however argue that this limited view fails to understand the possibilities it opens up for those who do not have such facilities available. Instead the Metaverse provides learning and collaboration possibilities for the many, not the privileged few.