The Reality of Virtual Worlds in Higher Education: Beyond the Metaverse Hype

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Session Description

This paper critically examines the current state of virtual learning environments and their applicability in higher education hybrid courses. While the metaverse seems extremely promising for the creation of immersive educational experiences, our findings reveal a large gap between these aspirations and the present technical and practical realities. The main challenges of metaverse implementation in higher education hybrid courses include fragmentation of virtual spaces, limited affordances of the different apps, and the need for a balanced perspective that acknowledges both the potential and constraints. This paper encourages a discussion on how to approach, in a pragmatic way, research and development in this field to bridge the gap between vision and implementation.

Presenter(s)

Cristina Obae
University of Lapland
Rovaniemi, Finland

Dr. Cristina Obae is a visionary and forward thinking innovative educational leader. She has over 20 years teaching experience both at University and secondary school level. She is passionate about curriculum and technology, strongly believing that it is through quality education that we can support the humankind and make the world advance one step at a time. Cristina has a PhD from the University of Bordeaux, a 2nd master’s degree in Educational Leadership from, TAMK, Finland, and is pursuing research towards a 2nd PhD on metaverse learning environments and curriculum at University of Lapland, Rovaniemi. She was a member of the European Digital Education Hub squads on artificial intelligence (AI); immersive learning and sustainability and led the squad on hybrid learning. Her current research interests are: curriculum, the metaverse and AI.

Chih-Pu Dai
University of Hawaii
Honolulu, HI, USA

Peter Leong
University of Hawaii
Honolulu, HI, USA

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