Dr Toni Pirtle's Blog

Engaging Adult Students With Virtual Reality

Posted on by Dr Pirtle

While most teachers in a traditional classroom plan for interactive experiences for learners, many teachers also know that engaging students is becoming more and more challenging and demands more creativity than ever before. My experiences teaching in a virtual reality setting align with what the research is showing, that learners become completely immersed and fully engaged. In virtual reality, I have witnessed that learners feel present immediately, and feel a sense of belonging and fulfillment and, they absolutely engage all the time! This is a fully immersive experience.

Teaching a class inside of a Virtual Reality setting involves much planning, in the same manner a lesson planning for a traditional classroom. There needs to be a lot of thought about the interactive opportunities to be provided, but also a lot of planning around the technology, classroom setting, and the multitude of tools that can be utilized to facilitate a great learner experience. While the virtual reality environment provides well for the opportunity for all to be fully involved, the classroom management techniques need a definite upgrade from the way a teacher manages a traditional face to face classroom, or even a traditional online classroom, if there is such a thing!

There are many different applications or platforms that can be used in which to launch a class. Deciding which application/platform to use, depends on the type of experience you would like to provide to the students. Perhaps you would like a traditional lecture format, in which the instructor presents at a podium and utilizes some form of projection system to a large screen. Perhaps the instructor would like a whiteboard and access to web resources that can also be projected for the the students to see. There are so many more options in the virtual reality world, such as customizing the environment and spaces, creating objects which users may interact with, or, opportunities for group activities that allow users to move freely around the space with tools/tasks in hand. It is very wise to check out what the different platforms/apps have to offer, I use several platforms, each for the different experiences they provide – and the choice usually depends on what kind of immersive experience I want my learners to achieve and which tools I would like them to use.  My favorite is currently Spatial   Go experiment! If you have any questions, or would like help in getting started, or are looking for creative ideas to bring your curriculum to life in virtual reality, let’s chat!

 

Taking Part in a Podcast Episode inside the Metaverse

Taking Part in a Podcast Episode inside the Metaverse

Posted on by Dr Pirtle

I had such a cool experience recently! I joined Dr. Reggie Padin for a tour of his L&D University Meta Campus that he has created in Horizon Worlds.  Having built a learning environment myself in the metaverse, I can share with you that Dr Padin’s metacampus is an amazing place to visit – classes in there will be awesome!  So much  skill and determination has resulted in the development of a fabulous, fun, inspirational, colorful, and friendly learning environment.  Dr Padin is bringing his creative vision to life in the virtual world!  The early meta environment builders (of which I am one) are learning how to create these places by themselves, by trial and error and they are spending hundreds of hours creating and editing. The early builders are finding each other and forming relationships to learn from each other – reminisce of the experiences I had in the days learning html with those first developers!  I foresee great learning environments growing, and I know our learners will come to demand being able to attend them!

During the tour of the campus, Dr Padin walked me by the waterfall, by the central pond, to various pods/classrooms, and then over to his virtual podcast studio.  It was there that we talked about the fact that I use to teach Podcasting, and I shared how I thought that this was a great idea to have a virtual podcast studio! The traditional podcast studio is far less attractive, stocked with a computer, microphone, a telephone line or zoom screen, and lots of lonely editing time.  What a concept – putting a virtual face to the often times lonely podcast studio!  The tour was followed up a few days later by Dr Padin hosting a live virtual podcast with myself, Monica Gragg, Carmen Padin and Ann Meyer from the L&D University Meta Campus Podcasting Studio!  It was so cool to meet the panel, all in avatar form, to be able to chat, laugh and question, live, face to face, sort of!  Checkout the podcast episode above 🙂

Technology is truly amazing, I feel blessed and honored to be a part of every tech revolution, but this one is particularly special to me.  Never have I known so much, have I had so much experience to bring to the table, and never have I had such excitement to truly be able to go to other worlds!  I am so enjoying working with the pioneers who endeavor to explore and explain to others.  We are all teachers, we are all learners!  More to come….

 

Privacy & Safety for Children in the Metaverse

Posted on by Dr Pirtle

When I started teaching social media a decade ago, the big worry back then was privacy and safety for users. I was so concerned I developed and presented workshops about Social Media Safety for Teens and Parents!  Today, the social gatherings and experiences are growing in the metaverse, and there is much being written about the use of safety and privacy in the metaverse environments.  What is interesting to me is that this time around, there are actually guidelines and active enforcement to provide for much safer environments within the metaverse!

In August this year,  CARU (the Children’s Advertising Review Unit of BBB National Programs) issued a compliance warning of their Advertising Guidelines pertaining to advertising directed at children (under the age of 13) in the metaverse.  They clearly identify that children’s advertising rules apply in the metaverse too.  For a quick summary, check out the August 30th National Law Review article on the matter,   https://www.natlawreview.com/article/children-s-advertising-rules-apply-metaverse-too-caru-says. 

The CARU guidelines address advertising practices and I recommend anyone who is building a metaverse presence review the advertising guidelines, not only because it is important to know the rules, but also because the guidelines will be strictly enforced.  The guidelines are available at https://assets.bbbprograms.org/docs/default-source/caru/compliancewarning-metaverse.pdf?sfvrsn=b9937f2b_7. I encourage you to visit the link, download/print the document for reference as you build your metaverse!

Until the next time….

Exploring in VR!

Posted on by Dr Pirtle

As I continue on my virtual reality journey, exploring the multiverse is so much fun! Checkout this particular trip! Fabulous views and experience inside of the VR world using Engage – arriving on the beautiful Engage Catamaran. What a great place to hold an event, meeting, or class! This visit was during the daytime, be sure to check out my night time visit there too in my next post! Look for Toni Pirtle on the Oculus Quest 2 and join me on the Quest 😉

I Minted My First NFT!

Posted on by Dr Pirtle

Steve Jobs said “the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do”. – Steve Jobs.

My teaching career began in the last century around 1994, just as Web 1.0 was born! This was the time of the World Wide Web, and the ability to have a static website! I taught technology subjects, I believed in what I was doing and loved it too!

©tonipirtle all rights reserved

Then, around 2010, the world changed again and we entered a new technology era, Web 2.0. This was the time that we moved away from a static web to a period when the social networking revolution began. This was our time to “interact” on the web, and ultimately, develop our social media platforms for communication and relationship building.

I have fond memories of a conversation at that time between my husband and I. We were discussing the changes in technology and the role education must play in it. The conversation resulted in my husband reminding me that (1) “you love this stuff” and, (2) “you must do what you believe in.” Sound familiar? And so was born several curricula for social media courses, as well as multiple workshops and training opportunities for local small businesses and schools. I believed it was critical to educate our students and community on this game-changer called social media. I was satisfied, I believed, and I loved doing it too!

Fast forward ten years or so to today. We are currently witnessing the emergence of Web 3.0, a move away from the management of our web content by those who host us. In short, Web 3.0 is about freedom and ownership! The freedom to develop, place, and manage your content in a decentralized system.

We have been operating in rented spaces or platforms that hold and manage everything we post, not so in Web 3.0. This new era opens up the world of content development, the blockchain, NFT’s, and the metaverse! A fun fact – in 2021, the NFT trading volume went from $94 million to $24.9 billion, in 2021!!!!!

Today, I minted my first NFT! The image in this post is my first minted NFT! This means that not only did I create it, but I also own it, and it sits on the blockchain with proof of ownership and with the ability to trade it if I so wish. I am now officially a “Content Developer”.

Watch out for that terminology, you will see much more of it in the months to come!!! I am not going to sell or trade my first NFT – it isn’t for sale – since it is my first I am going to keep it for posterity purposes 🙂

“the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do”. – said Steve Jobs.

I’m doing it. More to come…..