XR for education propaganda – EDUMetaverse
propaganda: 1 – ideas, facts, or allegations spread deliberately to further one’s cause or to damage an opposing cause also…
Category: immersive learning
When Tech Platforms Donate The Resources
Jeremy Bailenson As much…
From Myths to Principles Part 6 Myth: Immersive learning is active learning
From Myths to Principles: Navigating Instructional Design in Immersive Environments Part 6 Myth: Immersive learning is active learning Photo by…
From Myths to Principles Part 5: Myth: Learners Learn More
From Myths to Principles: Navigating Instructional Design in Immersive Environments
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foundation of all learning, or child’s first book, by which a child will learn more in one month than by many others in twelve, Author Unknown, Date 1800. Source: Compositor, University of Birmingham Myth: Learners learn more in immersive experiencesThis myth shrouds itself within a cloak of research. Citations will state that learning in immersive experiences is somehow greater when pitted against an implied traditional learning approach. The claim could appear as retention, but it is related to how well the learning was accomplished when measured up against learning objectives or a final goal. When referring to the PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) report results mentioned earlier in this article series, Scott Likens claimed, “We found the realism and performance feedback in virtual reality simulations helped people learn faster and retain more information around soft skills,” (Zielinski, 2021, para. 9). He claimed they retained more information. This specific claim has been repeated in academic literature, which stated, “Studies have found that students who use XR training are more engaged with the content, display more confidence with the material, and retain more information than students who use traditional training methods.” (Rode, 2024, para 2.) A close examination of the PwC report, however, reveals that the claim was unsupported within the report’s own data. When comparing information retention in VR versus an e-learning course, the authors “quickly discovered retention scores were inconclusive, as the delta between pre-and post-assessments in each modality was not significant” (Eckert & Mower, 2020, p. 44). Thus, there was no statistical difference between VR-based, e-learning, and traditional classroom learning.
The report therefore does not provide statistical evidence of more or greater learning within VR, yet it has been cited in academic publications (O’Dwyer, 2021, Etienne et al., 2022, Jelki et al., 2022; Bäckelin, 2023; Etienne et al., 2023; Lønne et al,. 2023) and touted in media outlets (Murad, 2023; Schwantes, 2020). For the dubious claims, the report has been debunked as untrustworthy (Neelen & Kirschner, 2020). There are similar claims about greater learning retained from immersive experiences. Advocates for digital twin campus environments claimed that they “create greater retention of the information that is learned” (D’Agustino, 2022, para. 5) and “students’ grades go up” (Victory XR, 2024, Who We Are).
In another example, the CEO of the Miami Children’s Health System touted that learners had 80% retention after one year after using VR, but traditional learners had 20% retention. A close look at the supporting documentation shows that the CEO actually said that the difference between VR learners and traditional learners can be the 80% to 20% difference.
 However, the CEO’s statement did not refer to any published results; it was opinion. The CEO explained their claim by saying that, “The level of understanding through VR is great because humans are primarily visual, and VR is a visual format” (Gaudiosi, 2021, para. 4). Cue learning styles!
 Nonetheless, the quote of 80% retention has made its way into academic research (Iacono & Vercelli, 2019; Mathew & Pillai, 2020; Ternès, 2018). Some claims are extreme. One keynote speaker, Alvin Graylin, speaking as a leader at HTC (a VR headset maker) declared that as a result of VR use in the classroom, “Every single child has the potential to be a genius” (Educators in VR, 2020, 23:33).
Justification for the greater learning or retention claims seems to be conjecture. Claims refer to how real an immersive experience feels to a learner. Returning to the PwC report, Likens credited “the realism and performance feedback…helped people..retain more information.” (Zielinski, 2021, para. 9). But long term studies measuring retention are hard to find within the body of academic literature. Some studies measure retention three weeks after the immersive experiences. Given that many of the examples of immersive experiences relate to hands-on disciplines like nursing or construction, things learned in immersive experiences would be needed on the job more than three weeks after the training. Hamilton et al. (2020) stated that finding “learning outcomes, intervention characteristics, and assessment measures associated with immersive virtual reality has been sparse” (p. 1). Beck, Morgado, and O’Shea (2023) pointed out that details of methods are missing so that outcomes become questionable, “Very few literature reviews focus on the educational practices and strategies used in immersive learning environments. Thus, the problem is that we are evaluating outcomes without a comparable way to describe the educational approaches that led to those outcomes” (p. 2). Lawson et al. (2024) completed a systematic review of immersive experiences and found that research studies rarely isolate instructional methods and conditions when describing research studies and thus impact real world classroom decisions. Meta analyses are starting to illuminate this area. Akgün and Atıcı (2022) observed that there was only a moderate effect on learner achievement after surveying 31 studies. Kaplan, Cruit, Endsley, Beers, Sawyer and Hancock found that “XR does not express a different outcome than training in a non-simulated, control environment. It is equally effective at enhancing performance” (2020, p. 1) Some researchers are starting to incorporate machine learning and artificial intelligence into this challenge in order to determine what the published records states about immersive experiences. Markowitz et al. (2024) recently surveyed 196,734 paper abstracts with this method.
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From Myths to Principles Part 3 The Case Against Virtual Campuses
From Myths to Principles: Navigating Instructional Design in Immersive Environments
Part 3 The Case Against Virtual Campuses
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Virtual Campuses: 2010 and 2023. Not much has changed; they still don’t work. |
I write this title with a tinge of irony. I’ve owned virtual campuses. I’ve worked on virtual campuses. If asked to work on a virtual campus again, I’d likely say yes. So what’s my beef with virtual campuses?
I feel that a sober-eyed look at virtual campuses* is necessary.
Following the philosophy of ““those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” (Santayana), here is Part 3 of my series: From Myths to Principles; Navigating Instructional Design in Immersive Environments.
The rise and fall of the metaversity
In Part 2 of this series,I examined two examples from the history of immersive learning. First, I showed the parallels when companies like Meta and Linden Lab dominate a single platform for immersive learning designs. The lesson is that what is allowed one day can quickly become disallowed the next day. Second, I pointed out the inappropriate boasting and poor course design used in the “first course in virtual reality” by Stanford University. In these recent cases (Meta and Stanford University) there was a remarkable lack of awareness of the history of immersive learning. Said another way, mistakes of the past were repeated.
In another example of history repeating itself, ten colleges and universities adopted digital twin campuses in June 2022 using the ENGAGE platform with monetary support and donated VR headsets from Meta (Koenig, 2022). These metaversity locations recreated (or created!) campus buildings to allow learners to gather on the virtual campus.
Eight years prior, Second Life (SL) campus buildings were “designed to mimic real-world architectural equivalents” but had become “abandoned ghost towns” (Wecker, 2014).
The early Second Life virtual campus creations were often the result of student projects. Confusingly, the professors who designed and assigned these projects touted the work of creating faithful campus recreations as creative and thus, at the highest level of Bloom’s cognitive learning objectives. I’m inserting a heavy eye roll here because that’s really stretching the justification of working in virtual reality to an extreme point. Plus, I have to point out: what does next year’s class build if this year’s class made the campus? My point is that simply building campus buildings (so that you can have a virtual campus!) is a project idea that runs out of steam. Things got really interesting right after the SL virtual campuses were launched. Everyone involved noticed that the spaces were not being utilized.
Students were asked why they weren’t visiting the virtual campus.
The answer was simple.
No one was there.
You see, you could have the most amazing design with all of the bells and whistles (really!), but if people were not there, then people found that there was no compelling reason to return. Admissions folks had no compelling reason to be in the virtual admissions building, same for financial aid teams. Even library teams today in virtual reality struggle to staff spaces with the same spread as IRL (in real life) libraries.
During a recent tour of the University of Maryland Global Campus metaversity campus, the audio connection failed. The host did not offer any tech support. The experience showcased empty buildings during what was a busy time of the academic semester. To be fair, I understand the implications of FERPA which might have predicted that students were in classroom spaces separate from public spaces. However, it is logical that on any campus, students could still be found in public space buildings like the networking lounge. These accurate campus recreations rarely spur more than a passing interest to learners.
The ten colleges and universities in this project are now facing the end of the project and the initial funding is ending. Steven Van Hook commented that, “Administrators may speak of their twin campuses in glittering terms on the record –then off the record talk about their regrets and what else they could have bought for the hundreds of thousands of dollars” (VWBPE, 2024). According to Temple University’s Kathy Hirsh Pasek, “A year ago, a lot of companies were going full steam ahead. Today’s that’s not true; they’ve rerouted a lot of their funds for AI and Twitter alternatives” (Coffey, 2023, para. 37) Institutions made the decision to adopt immersive experiences but do not appear to know how to make wise decisions when generous funding stops and societal attention moves on.
The key problems
Therefore, throughout these first three parts of this series, there are several challenges apparent. Instructional designers and administrators must wade through the myriad of claims derived from dubious research studies. It feels like chicanery to figure out which statements about immersive experiences for learning are authentic and do point the way to future positive outcomes and which statements are in doubt. The first issue is with interpreting research wisely. Every research study has inherent flaws; no one study can definitively provide answers to all of education’s questions. This situation is made worse when the research is translated into social media and seems to tout incredible claims (Lanier et al., 2019).
Therefore, the conundrum has been illuminated. The myths that appear to come from a research basis must be dispelled. Next, the very basis of the published research record is at risk of bias and problems. This series will inform on what characteristics to look for in published research. Finally, if one were to step around the research interpretation problems, what is the system for building and using immersive experiences for its best advantage? This series will attempt to answer these questions. This series then forms the navigator role for instructional designers and administrators figuring out how to chart a route to a successful implementation.
Post Script
*virtual campuses
I’m using the term virtual campuses to specifically refer to real work recreations of campus spaces like quads and lecture halls. I am not referring to simulations (for example in science courses) or spaces specifically designed for social use (for example, dance halls).
Virtual campuses were designed as early as 1999 as text-based educational MUVEs (multi user virtual environments). This example classroom shows “the room’s description, list of contents, who is in the room, the exits, and links to applications” (Maher, et al., 1999).
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| Technically, ‘Nobody else is here’ might have been foresight. |
The metaversity concept is not to be confused with metauniversities, which are global collaborating universities (Costanza, et al., 2021). It appears as though the metaversity term became popular in 2021 and the company ENGAGE is not the only entity to claim it.
Coffey, L. (2023, July 11). “Metaversities” face virtual learning’s financial reality. Inside Higher Ed | Higher Education News, Events and Jobs. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/tech-innovation/teaching-learning/2023/07/11/metaversities-face-virtual-learnings-financial
Costanza, R., Kubiszewski, I., Kompas, T., & Sutton, P. C. (2021). A global metauniversity to lead by design to a sustainable well-being future. Frontiers in Sustainability, 2, 653721.
Koenig, R. (2022, June 6). With Money From Facebook, 10 Colleges Turn Their Campuses into ‘Metaversities.’ EdSurge. https://www.edsurge.com/news/2022-06-01-with-money-from-facebook-10-colleges-turn-their-campuses-into-metaversities
Lanier, M., Waddell, T. F., Elson, M., Tamul, D. J., Ivory, J. D., & Przybylski, A. (2019). Virtual reality check: Statistical power, reported results, and the validity of research on the psychology of virtual reality and immersive environments. Computers in Human Behavior, 100, 70–78. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2019.06.015
Maher, M. L., Skow, B., & Cicognani, A. (1999). Designing the virtual campus. Design Studies, 20(4), 319-342.
Wecker, M. (2014, April 22). What ever happened to Second Life? Chronicle Vitae. https://chroniclevitae.com/news/456-what-ever-happened-to-second-life
#VirtualCampus #edtech #VirtualUniversity
This article is simultaneously posted to LinkedIn and to my blog. My copyrights are retained. This article cannot be used to train AI.
From Myths to Principles Part 2 The Immersive Environment Delusion
From Myths to Principles: Navigating Instructional Design in Immersive Environments
Part 2: The Immersive Environment Delusion
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| Image: Me and Copilot working on this using the article title, The Computer Delusion but making it personal, jazzy, and teal. |
In Part 1, we introduced this new series, From Myths to Principles: Navigating Instructional Design in Immersive Environments. This is an update from my 2022 series.
In this Part 2, we’re going to go through some backstory showing the educators in Second Life was the first wave of hype for using immersive environments and we’ll look at one recent example from Stanford University with their “Virtual People” course.
Here we go!
History repeats itself
The history of educational technology is a rhyme that repeats. Initial pitches have created optimism that the next big thing in technology will revolutionize education. Oppenheimer (1997) in a really well written article illustrated part of the history of educational technology by citing four examples:
- Edison’s 1922 prediction that the motion picture will revolutionize education.
- Levenson’s claim that radios will become common in every classroom.
- Skinner asserted that learners with teaching machines could learn twice as much.
- Clinton campaigned that computers are a bridge to the twenty-first century. (para. 1)
The motion picture, the radio receiver, programmed instruction, and computers in the classroom have all failed to significantly impact learner performance. The past 102 years have not been kind to hyped educational technology predictions.
I can hear you through the nether.
There are some saying “But the metaverse is different!”
Sit down. 👈😠
I’ll deal with you soon enough.
Cuban (1986) further suggested that this educational technology adoption cycle follows a predictable pattern. First, the earliest research will be produced by the technology producers themselves. Second, problems arise with adoption. Learner performance does not improve over the long term. The final stage in the cycle is blame-finding with reasons ranging from not enough money, educator resistance, and educational systems resistant to change. The methods and reasoning for incorporating the technology are rarely addressed in the historical or market record. The reader of this series might recognize these statements already being made about immersive experiences. As such, hype cycles for immersive experiences are already underway.
This last point deserves emphasis. Here are the steps again:
1. Tech producers make the first “research”.
2. Tech adopted, but learner performance does not improve long term.
3. Blame-finding ensues.
I wanted to emphasize these points because they are going to appear in the research record that I will present.
Boom and bust cycles
Immersive experiences have already weathered several boom and bust cycles. One cycle began between 2003 and 2009. The desktop-based virtual reality program called Second Life, created by Linden Lab, attracted over 100 universities (Brown & Sugar, 2009) and thousands of dollars of investment (Wecker, 2014).
In a sudden decision, Linden Lab eliminated its 50% discount for educational institutions (Harrison, 2010). What resulted was an educator exodus and fracture in the faith of immersive experiences for education. When referring to the shutdown of Woodbury University’s virtual campus for breach of conduct, Jordan Bellino, a senior learner at the institution, described the hazard when one major company dominates use:
The incident suggests the dangers of online meeting spaces’ being run by companies, which get to decide who participates and who doesn’t. “It took years and thousands of dollars to make that virtual campus happen,” he said, “and it all vanished in a matter of an hour because Linden Lab pushed a button.” (Young, 2010, para. 12)
Major technology companies can single-handedly dictate use of immersive environments. This would be a valuable lesson lost before the next boom cycle began in 2018.
First course in virtual reality
After the launch of the consumer-oriented Quest headsets and the mandate for remote learning due to the COVID pandemic in 2020, interest in immersive environments surged. In June of 2021, Stanford opened their Virtual People course to 263 learners (Bailenson, 2021).
Source: https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2021/11/new-class-among-first-taught-entirely-virtual-reality
Source: https://www.scrippsnews.com/us-news/education/stanford-virtual-reality-class-puts-students-in-metaverse
The course was touted to be the first class in the world to be held inside of virtual reality (Hadhazy, 2021) which seemed to cast aside the nearly two-decade deep body of research on courses held as immersive experiences. The prestige of the course was further hyped when one of the course professors boasted:
I can now stand up in front of all my students and there’s, you know, two hundred in the class, and I can say you will actually have a better chance of getting a job in the Valley because of taking this class because as of about a year ago, the most sought-after job in the Valley went from a data scientist to a VR engineer. (Bellini, 2024, para 12)
The VR-based learning resulted in greater presence, enjoyment, motivation, and transfer (Han & Bailenson, 2024). However, within the course, all was not well. Video clips from the class showed learners struggling to control their avatars (Bailenson, 2021) and attending class just to stand around in circles (Bellini, 2021).
(In case video does not display, it’s here: https://youtu.be/gOLI_OIV3nc?si=jv2LF-d4Dz8sIZsf)
In spite of the boasting, published reports illuminated problems with onboarding learners to the VR headset experience, unexpected software updates, and sudden platform shutdowns (Han & Bailenson, 2024).
The instructional design was described as learning by doing, but the syllabus showed a majority of outside-of-virtual-world writing and quiz items. Within the immersive environment, there were required weekly discussion sessions (Han et al., 2022) and one project where learners could import 3D (three-dimensional) objects to make a unique VR environment. My translation? That’s not much doing, actually, as it relates to being a “virtual person”.
Much to the professors’ astonishment, one group of learners made a mock fake moon landing production set (Brown et al., 2023). For the course instructors, this suddenly raised the specter that immersive experiences can create false depictions or fake memories, a topic that will be revisited in the ethical labyrinths section of this series.
In Part 3, I’ll share another example of boom and bust from the immersive environments-for-education market.
Post-publication edit:
They say there is no editor like the “Publish” button and that makes me laugh because you DO spot errors after something has been published. But in this case, it’s not an error that I want to address, I want to add more depth and context to this post. Since it’s my blog, I can. This work was previously planned to be a book chapter and as such, I held my tongue on some of my more pointed criticism and images. But here, I can lay out things more directly.
Directly I am pointing to the Communication 166/266:Virtual People course as a poor design from an instructional designers point of view. I have studied the syllabus and read several articles and watched videos produced about the course. You can read the syllabus.
What I can’t find is how many credits the course was. Just guessing from the workload in the syllabus, I’d guess 2 credits. Could be 3 but it also could be 1. I severely doubt it’s 4.
Where do I get the platform to critique this course?
1. I have 14 years full time experience teaching online. Until ~2034, there are very few that can match me with that kind of full time teaching experience. Now Bailenson’s class was arguably not “online” by definition (it happened in June 2021 or so and that would be post-shutdown), but it appears to have happened entirely remotely with the exception of picking up the headsets. So I can claim some expertise about what SHOULD happen with digital-based instruction.
2. My doctorate is in Instructional Design specifically *for Online Learning*. So I’ve spent my time focusing on that.
3. My research focus was and is learning in immersive environments (hence this article series).
4. Uniquely, I ALSO taught a course using the Meta Quest 2s which had a similar “survey” type of design. So what Bailenson did by visiting topics each week briefly is NOT part of my critique.
Three things are my main concerns here:
1. Video clips show a ridiculous amount of on-boarding malarkey. Said another way, bringing learners into a 3D environment, not acclimating them to this and then bringing in various models and just letting the users play is nice for an introduction. It does NOT make a course and certainly it does not argue for a widespread use of the technology.
I’m sure that in one version of the video, I could hear learners over and over again gathered in small groups supposedly “doing” something in VR only to hear “can anyone hear me?” as a COMMON statement. Take my word for it; a class filled from beginning to end with learners not being able to hear or be heard does not count for much learning.
My point: there isn’t evidence that anything other than some “visits” to VR happened. And yet, over and over, this flagship course (my phrase) has learners that can’t walk, wave, or follow instructions and (I guess) hear instructions. After week one, the learners *should* be on-boarded, all practiced up and ready to do harder things. ‘Just walk over here for a group photo’ should not feel like an instructionally-impossible task– and the videos sure do make it look like it was.
(I had to giggle because in that “all class” photo, there is one avatar in 2D (not in a headset, because they don’t have hands and their movement is all 2D-type) and they are the only one that looks “logical” in their behaviors.)
2. Bailenson really shows his excitement (in the somewhat unprofessional video) but also the “un-put-togetherness” of this experience with the quote I provided:
I
can now stand up in front of all my students and there’s, you know, two
hundred in the class, and I can say you will actually have a better
chance of getting a job in the Valley because of taking this class
because as of about a year ago, the most sought-after job in the Valley
went from a data scientist to a VR engineer. (Bellini, 2024, para 12)
I find it VERY hard to believe that this one course at the 100 and 200 level will lead for a number like 200 new VR engineer’s getting jobs in “the Valley”. Insert hard eyeroll here. 🙄 It looks extra bravado-y when he phrases it as “I can now stand up” as if he’s really planning to do this or HAS done it. It’s a brag. No humble about it. Last I checked, the Valley wants to hire computer scientists, who should be in calculus class at the same time as this headset romp. Fact check: The Valley has been laying off VR teams. So how’s that ‘better chance of getting a job’ brag going for ya?
3. The learn-by-doing quote gets under my skin as an instructional designer. Learn WHAT by doing WHAT, in this case? His students had to use pre-existing 3D models included in the ENGAGE platform (OK, fine– but note that I didn’t see ANY examples of models beyond ones we’ve already seen in ENGAGE advertising) to build a scene that was basically their final project.
(Again, disclosure: my students final project was a video mock-up of an immersive experience that they would design, if they could. The course taught no programming skills.)
So OK, it’s fine that learners can’t program after 1 course. Totally understood. But then the learners put together a final project scene that sounds like Bailenson’s team spit out their coffee over…J. Brown source described the team experience as, “jarring” and wanted to coin a new phrase, “mis-experience.” What the phrase? Garbage in, garbage out? You don’t design a compelling course and the results surprise you? Sigh.
It appears that they took the “made lemonade from lemons” approach. Note that I haven’t mentioned ANYTHING about comparative learning outcomes related to this heralded course. Because there isn’t any data on that. Not like there should be, but the research is remarkably silent on that.
Also fact check on this: the Meta Quest 2 headsets are officially OUT of support and sale from Meta. So they are, as of this writing, outdated. I wonder how it’s going over there at Stanford. Do they just ring up Mark and ask for 266 more headsets in the Meta Quest 3 type now?
I haven’t mentioned much, (actually I left it OUT), how much ENGAGE got free advertising from this mess. That’s because they are really the main characters in the NEXT episode.
References
Bailenson, J. M. (2021). Stanford “Virtual People” class in the metaverse. [Video.] YouTube. https://youtu.be/gOLI_OIV3nc?si=if6DbOX43GESWTBd
Bellini, J. (2021, December 7). Stanford virtual reality class immerses students in metaverse. Scripps News. https://www.scrippsnews.com/us-news/education/stanford-virtual-reality-class-puts-students-in-metaverse
Brown, A., & Sugar, W. (2010). Second life in education: The case of commercial online virtual reality applied to teaching and learning. Themes in Science and Technology education, 2(1-2), 107-115.
Brown, J., Bailenson, J., & Hancock, J. (2023). Misinformation in virtual reality. Journal of Online Trust and Safety, 1(5).
Cuban, L. (2001). Oversold and underused: Computers in the classroom. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University.
Hadhazy, A. (2021, November 5). Stanford course allows students to learn about virtual reality while fully immersed in VR environments. Stanford Report. https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2021/11/new-class-among-first-taught-entirely-virtual-reality
Han, E., & Bailenson, J. N. (2024). Lessons for/in virtual classrooms: designing a model for classrooms inside virtual reality. Communication Education, 73(2), 234-243.
Harrison, D. (2010, November 3). Linden Lab to end Second Life educational discounts. THE Journal. https://thejournal.com/Articles/2010/11/03/Linden-Lab-To-End-Second-Life-Educational-Discounts.aspx?Page=1
Oppenheimer, T. (1997, July). The computer delusion. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1997/07/the-computer-delusion/376899/
Wecker, M. (2014, April 22). What ever happened to Second Life? Chronicle Vitae. https://chroniclevitae.com/news/456-what-ever-happened-to-second-lifeYoung, J. (2010, April 21). Woodbury U. banned from Second Life, again. Chronicle of Higher Education. Wired Campus. https://www.chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/woodbury-u-banned-from-second-life-again
From Myths To Principles: Navigating Instructional Design in Immersive Environments Part 1 Introduction
From Myths to Principles: Navigating Instructional Design in Immersive Environments
Part 1 Introduction
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This article begins a new series where I intend to continue to bust myths related to learning in immersive environments while also advocating for research-based decisions related to instructional design.
Now if that sounded like gobbly-gook, this might not be the series for you. But, for anyone with an interest in virtual worlds, the metaverse, or even a simple 2D simulation and the uses of these for education, this is the RIGHT place for you.
This is an updated version of my original 8-part Instructional Design in the Metaverse series. (Did you miss that? Here’s my 3 minute explainer video.) I estimate that I have at least 15 parts right now to start this series and new research comes in every day. However, this being my blog, I intend to spill a little more tea here than I do in other places.
Buckle up buttercups!
Buckle up buttercups!
Prognostication
Photo by Olena Kamenetska on Unsplash I’m getting a pretty strong reputation for being the most anti-XR person…