Metaverse IQ & the Future of Higher Education
Shea Richburg
Metaverse Speaker, Futurist & Metaverse Experience Design Consultant | Co-Founder Future Wise Group | Podcast Executive Producer | Board Advisor & Metaverse Consultant
Metaverse IQ & the Future of Higher Education - A Revolution in Learning
Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an exploration of the groundbreaking concept that is poised to reshape the landscape of higher education - the Metaverse Intelligence Quotient (MIQ). My name is Shea Richburg, and I am thrilled to guide you through this transformative journey. As the co-founder of Future Wise, I'm dedicated to unraveling the potential of the Metaverse and its profound impact on education.
Defining the Metaverse
Before we delve into the potential of MIQ, it's crucial to define the Metaverse. As my colleague, Lewis Rosenberg, eloquently puts it, the Metaverse is an immersive simulated world that is experienced firsthand by countless users, fostering a deep sense of connection and presence. It's essential to understand that there are two main types of Metaverse experiences: the Virtual Metaverse and the Augmented Metaverse.
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Virtual Metaverse
In the Virtual Metaverse, users are fully immersed in a virtual environment, navigating through this digital realm using avatars. Much of higher education's Metaverse learning takes place in this virtual setting, where students can embody AI avatars and immerse themselves in diverse and dynamic learning environments. -
Augmented Metaverse
The Augmented Metaverse, on the other hand, integrates elements of the virtual world into the physical world. Imagine being in a traditional classroom while interacting with virtual elements, such as avatars or augmented content. This blended reality offers unique learning opportunities.
Ensuring Safety in the Metaverse
Before we delve into the transformative potential of MIQ, it's essential to acknowledge and address the concerns and potential pitfalls that students might encounter in the Metaverse. These challenges encompass mental and psychological well-being, online harassment, privacy breaches, viral hate, exploitation, and algorithmic biases. To fully embrace the Metaverse's potential, ensuring a safe and supportive learning environment is paramount, and MIQ can play a crucial role in achieving this.
Connected Educational Engagement in the Metaverse
Now, let's explore the exciting opportunities for connected educational engagement in the Metaverse.
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Virtual Tours
In the wake of the global pandemic, institutions have begun offering virtual tours, allowing prospective students to explore campuses safely from the comfort of their homes. This has expanded access to higher education for many who couldn't physically visit campuses before. -
Innovative Teaching Methods
Higher education institutions are increasingly leveraging the Metaverse for teaching. This novel approach allows students to engage in hands-on learning experiences, fostering deeper understanding and practical skills. -
Financial Accessibility
The Metaverse also offers students the option to pay for tuition using cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, providing greater transparency and accessibility to their financial standings. -
Peer Collaboration
In the Metaverse, peer-to-peer learning is flourishing, enhancing collaboration and knowledge sharing among students. This peer-driven approach to learning is proving highly effective in higher education.
Metaverse Student Learning
Let's now explore the transformative impact of the Metaverse on student learning, comparing it to traditional methods.
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Active Learning
In the Metaverse, students actively engage with the learning process, fostering deeper understanding and critical thinking. Traditional learning often leans towards passive consumption of information. -
Fewer Distractions
The immersive nature of the Metaverse reduces external distractions, enabling students to focus more effectively on their studies compared to traditional classrooms. -
Meaningful Learning
Metaverse learning facilitates the creation of meaningful and relevant learning environments that resonate with students, bridging the gap between theory and practice. -
Social Learning
In contrast to the often solitary nature of traditional learning, the Metaverse promotes social learning, where students collaborate, communicate, and learn from one another. -
Spontaneous Learning
Metaverse learning encourages spontaneous and dynamic learning experiences, a stark departure from the rigid structure of traditional education.
What Has Higher Education Learned from VR So Far?
While not all universities have fully embraced the Metaverse, some have begun to explore its potential. Here are four overarching goals that could guide the integration of the Metaverse in higher education.
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Ubiquitous Education
The Metaverse eliminates geographical barriers, allowing education to be accessible from anywhere, and revolutionizing the concept of traditional classrooms. -
Active Learning Dominance
A shift towards active learning in the Metaverse reduces the reliance on traditional lectures, promoting interactive and engaging learning experiences. -
Informative Assessment
Greater emphasis on informative assessments reduces the reliance on traditional exams, providing a more holistic view of a student's abilities and potential. -
New Skill Development
The Metaverse fosters the development of critical skills such as communication, leadership, and collaboration, preparing students more effectively for the demands of the professional world.
Addressing Student Concerns
Before students can fully embrace the four goals mentioned earlier, we must address their current concerns, including emotional intelligence, cultural intelligence, and social awareness. These challenges paved the way for the introduction of MIQ, the Metaverse Intelligence Quotient.
The Metaverse Intelligence Quotient (MIQ)
Now, let's delve into the core concept of MIQ, the Metaverse Intelligence Quotient.
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MIQ Formula
The MIQ is a comprehensive formula designed to guide users in developing the essential skills needed to thrive in the Metaverse. It consists of four pillars: awareness, inclusiveness, respect, and empathy. -
Awareness
Awareness, the first pillar, encompasses self-awareness, awareness of others, and awareness of one's surroundings in the Metaverse. It is crucial for fostering positive and productive interactions. -
Inclusiveness
Inclusiveness promotes collaboration and unity, emphasizing that in the Metaverse, differences should be celebrated rather than dividing factors. It encourages a harmonious learning environment. -
Respect
Respect is vital in ensuring that students treat each other with dignity and courtesy, whether through comments, interactions, or maintaining personal space. -
Empathy
Empathy drives students to understand and support their peers, particularly when someone may feel left out or uncomfortable. It nurtures a compassionate and supportive Metaverse community.
Vision for Higher Education with MIQ
The vision for higher education in the Metaverse, driven by MIQ, is a future where education knows no geographical bounds. It's a world where active learning thrives, exams are replaced by informative assessments, and students develop critical skills. With MIQ as the moral compass, we aim to foster a learning environment that prioritizes safety, inclusivity, respect, and empathy. Through the Metaverse, we can connect students from diverse backgrounds, enhancing their mental well-being and social awareness. As we bridge this gap and embrace the Metaverse Intelligence Quotient, we prepare students for
Speakers Info
Shea Richburg Co-Founder at Futurewise Media & Consulting Group
Shea Richburg is a visionary female futurist and a prominent thought leader in the Metaverse space, dedicated to guiding top organizations, startups, and mid-size corporations into the boundless possibilities of the Metaverse. She currently serves as the Founder and Chief Operating Officer of Future Wise Group, a cutting-edge Metaverse-centered consulting agency.
Session Script: Metaverse IQ & the Future of Higher Education
Introduction
Metaverse
Types of Metaverse experiences
Virtual Metaverse
There is the virtual Metaverse, and then it's the augmented Metaverse. The virtual Metaverse is used to be fully immersed within this virtual setting by using avatars.
Augmented Metaverse
And the augmented Metaverse is the real world being displayed to our students with aspects of the virtual world placed in a real-world setting. So one example is that you may be in your actual classroom, the real world classroom, and then you look over, and then you may see a cool aspect from the virtual world a cool avatar talking to you. And most of the studies that we looked at a lot of our Virtual Learning in Higher Education is taking place in the actual virtual Metaverse. So students can use AI avatars of themselves, and they are submerged in a completely different surroundings from what one that they are actually in.
University students have the right to have a safe experience as they're in the Metaverse
Connected educational engagement in Metaverse
Now I'm going to back up a little we all know that we're all coming out of a huge pandemic, and it stopped so many aspects of what we were doing. And so we've now learned that even as we progress and go forward, we may have to face future shutdowns and other pandemics, but we have to continue striving and reaching our goals In doing that some institutions have started offering virtual tours. So students have taken the opportunity to visit universities multiple times in the comfort of their homes, physically being safe by using these virtual tours, and I think this is great because even before the pandemic, we have too many students who want to go and see universities, and they don't have the opportunity to physically go for numerous reasons. So students are immersed in the Metaverse through virtual tours through education itself. We are seeing some institutions using the Metaverse to teach students and which is cool.
I'll talk more about that. We see students conducting themselves and more hands-on learning skills in the Metaverse. And another aspect I wanted to touch on students is having the opportunity to pay via Bitcoin towards their tuition. And this is cool because this lets students have access to their financial standings and their schools. So they don't have to physically go in and speak to somebody, they can just go online and see what they owe and whom they need to talk to and what they need to do to catch up on their tuition. And lastly, we have students who are currently using the Metaverse to share ideas to assess one another. And we're seeing more peer-on-peer learning, which at higher levels of education, I think is the best way of learning.
Metaverse Student Learning
I think it's more of the professor doing the talking. We see more engagement. Now with Metaverse learning and traditional learning, there are more distractions, physical distractions around you in your environment. When you have VR Oculus on, there are fewer distractions. It's more meaningful learning. So as higher education embraces the Metaverse, we can create amazing settings that are meaningful to our students. Maybe the lessons we've learned we can take into our environment, and encompass what the students are learning. In traditional learning, we see more disconnect with what they're being taught. Again, we see traditional learning as more solo learning. In metaverse learning, there's more social learning, traditional learning things are unchanged. And again, I want to talk about how students I feel and traditional learning, expect the same type of learning. There's no sporadic and spontaneous learning that's taking place like there can and has been in Metaverse learning. And lastly, we see students feel as though traditional learning is more boring compared to Metaverse learning, which they feel is just more joyful. So I think that's very interesting to take a look at these studies.
What has the higher education learned using VR, so far?
So, so far, we don't have too many universities fully submerged in Metaverse use, but there are some and there are four main themes or goals I will like to see as more universities choose to learn within the Metaverse. So let's look at the first theme.
Education is everywhere
More active learning
Secondly, our second goal is to see more active learning which will be more in and lectures will be out. So the Metaverse has opened the door for new types of learning.
And what we've seen and we feel we will continually see is that universities will use less lecturing to educate their students because students now have access to active learning students will be active while they're engaging in class with people acting as far as literally standing up walking, riding, doing all these phenomenal things while they're in class. I think that's great.
Greater informative assessments
So the third goal that we'll see is greater informative assessments, which equals fewer exams. Exams do not provide an accurate description of a student's career potential. I think we can all agree on that. There is a huge gap between students as far as how they test and how they conduct themselves in a professional setting. If we use the Metaverse to bridge that gap, we will see more students ready for professional settings as they graduate from school. I think this is phenomenal. I think universities will see that their students will be very pleased with the learning that they received from these universities this Metaverse learning and applying the MIT to this Metaverse learning
Metaverse forces new skills
Now before we talk about all of our students in higher education achieving these four things, we have to talk about the current concerns that some students are dealing with today.
Concerns that students are currently struggling with
So if we are struggling with these three extremely important aspects today, our college students how are we to achieve those four main goals? Well, the answer is a new intelligence. The Metaverse intelligence quotient, the more time people spend within the Metaverse, there will be a growing need for a new connection that humans will need to develop. This is so important. I really can't harp on this enough. As students spend more time in the Metaverse, there is a new connection amongst each other that they will need to develop for them to create positive learning experiences. And this development amongst humans will be called the Metaverse intelligent quotient. This is a term created by myself and the co-founder of the future wives group, which is essential to set the standards of how students or children of all ages connect in the Metaverse and it's not just students. It's not just children, quite frankly, it's all humans, but today we're focusing on our college students.
This is so important. I really can't harp on this enough. As students spend more time in the Metaverse, there is a new connection amongst each other that they will need to develop for them to create positive learning experiences. And this development amongst humans will be called the Metaverse intelligent quotient. This is a term created by myself and the co-founder of the future wives group, which is essential to set the standards of how students or children of all ages connect in the Metaverse and it's not just students, it's not just children, quite frankly, it's all humans, but today we're focusing on our college students.
Metaverse intelligence quotient
Four pillars
The first pillar is awareness. The second is inclusiveness. The third is respect. And fourth is empathy. So I'm going to jump right in.
Awareness.
Okay, so the first pillar as I said is awareness. Awareness is something that develops in different stages. Self-awareness develops in different stages. We are not born here in this world to understand who we are meant to be. Meta Self Awareness, I love that term or self-consciousness, the me that everyone sees should be a profound meaning to me and those around me. So as students are learning in the Metaverse, there are three types of awareness’s that they have to be strongly cognitive on.
They have to be aware of their self-awareness, they have to understand how they present themselves in the Metaverse how others receive and perceive what they say in the Metaverse, then they have to be aware of others in the Metaverse, they have to be aware of how others are understanding what they're saying. They have to be aware of others. The connection that they are with their classmates in the Metaverse is going to be quite different. It's not as if the person is sitting next to you. So a student has to understand if they are saying something or using a term that is not commonly used by another student within a classroom. They have to be aware of this and understand Oh, okay, so maybe I shouldn't use this term, I should use the terminology that maybe this student is more familiar with, or if they're not familiar with the term explaining what a term is is means.
And lastly is being conscious of their surroundings, so students need to be aware of their settings, their classroom settings as they're in the Metaverse understanding how to safely you know, guide their avatar once they're in the Metaverse. This is all very important to produce these positive results in higher education.
Inclusiveness
Next, the second pillar that I'd like to discuss with you today is inclusiveness. By definition, inclusive, and this is broad in orientation in school, but we must remember that being inclusive in the Metaverse is not a moral obligation. Being inclusive in the Metaverse means there is no longer division, and that we are working together to produce the greatest results, okay? And this alternative world, it's going to be so many opportunities to have fun and to learn together. And for us to do this, we have to be able to embrace one another. As I said, it's no longer a matter of students all looking the same thinking the same. And so once students understand this and are excited to be inclusive, and to learn from other students across the world, and learn, possibly, you know, from other communities, the learning will be substantial, so being inclusive, and Metaverse should go hand in hand in higher education.
Respect
The third pillar for the Metaverse intelligent quotient is respect. Students must project and exhibit the same amount of respect in the Metaverse as they would in the real world. Students should not use the Metaverse to mask and show disrespect towards others. Examples of these are leaving comments to one another, or just actually not giving people enough space as they're in the Metaverse. We have found as people engage in the Metaverse, people feel as though they need more space, and their avatars need to have comfortable spacing amongst one another. There needs to be spacing between one's professors and the students.
And as they are engaging in activities with one another. They need to make sure they're not bumping into one another and controlling themselves and giving respect to one another. The Metaverse is not an encouragement for students to say discouraging remarks to one another, even though they feel as though they are not right next to the person, they should take the time, give respect to one another, and the learning will flourish.
Empathy
Now the last pillar of the MIQ is empathy. Some people feel that empathy is unique and everyone doesn't have empathy, but it's second nature to humans. So if students see something in the Metaverse that they feel, is making another classmate uncomfortable. Or if someone is not understanding the lesson or activity that's being taught, students now need to have empathy and work with one another to make sure that they are all learning together. And if somebody is feeling left out, it is for us to work together and make sure that we are all learning and understanding one another.
Okay, so what is the vision for higher education in the Metaverse in using the Metaverse intelligence quotient?
Vision
The vision is that the members have the capability connect students socially expand their access to things and people from farther distances and expand their learning opportunities. And this can be beneficial to their mental health as well, as well as the social beneficial guidelines that need to be implemented. This will have a great impact on higher education. So let's start bridging this gap and connecting all Students in the Metaverse by using the Metaverse intelligence quotient. And if we do this, if we get this right, universities will see that their students will have greater experiences.
As they go from students into the professional setting and workforce. Students will be greater prepared for the workforce in using the Metaverse in using the MIQ formula while they're in the Metaverse. So I hope ladies and gentlemen that if you remember anything today, you remember that we are living in times that are changing. And higher education needs to embrace the Metaverse through the MIQ formula, the MIQ formula, or moral compasses that will guide our students in creating these positive learning experiences. And once they create that their learning will truly flourish. And they will be fully prepared for their professional careers. So it's a pathway to success for our students. And in the universities that have been exploring this model and have implemented this MIQ. We have been seeing amazing goals being reached. So I come to you today, the co-founder of future was a group. I am so grateful to share the Metaverse intelligence quotient if you have any questions please feel free to contact me can contact me at www.futurewisegroup.com I'm also located on LinkedIn It was a pleasure thank you so much to all my colleagues out there and have a great day.
