The ICT of Monterrey teaches first class in the metro

For more than two years, students from schools and universities around the world lived chained to education sessions via Zoom or similar platforms and while that allowed them to continue taking classes, we know today that the experience far from face-to-face classes.

connect / tec.mx

Antonio Negrete Juarezprofessor on the Campus of Querétaro de Technology of Monterreyhas taken an important step by incorporating one of its classes into a digital environment created by the institute that allows its students to take classes remotely, but in an environment that seeks to emulate the closeness of others.

The session related to the topic Alternative Installations and Sessions held in the Virtual campusmetaverse created by the university where students and teachers attend classes with personal avatars, where there are common spaces to live together such as an auditorium, sports areas, lighthouse and even a beach to relax (albeit small).

In an interview with connection, the university’s news site, Negrete Juárez said: “The students told me that they enjoyed learning and having that experience close to someone.” The idea came after he undertook a training course in which he was asked to think of activities he could do with students on the Virtual Campus: “I had a class that lasted five weeks and lasted several hours per week. day. I emailed them and they said yes, we were going to work in the pilot.

According to Joaquin Guerra, deputy rector of Educational Innovation at the institute, the ESA has been promoting learning experiences for a number of years supported by virtual reality and augmented reality technologies: “The Pandemic has accelerated these processes. Now instead of just entering Zoom we can enter a virtual world, as in video games, and this immerses the experience … this metaverse was created with spaces, gardens, conference rooms, lounges, cafeteria. That’s where you come in, build your avatar and interact with others. “

The metaverse, schools, universities and challenges

Usually when we talk about metaverses, we think of leisure and fun. However, technology is a huge opportunity for education that is already being explored by educational institutions. Between virtual visits to their campuses and full courses taught in a virtual environment, some schools, like ICT, are already analyzing how to enhance their offering and scope through metro. But the process is not simple. People want to be careful, because metric education can redefine the way we think about the educational experience. According to Nir Eisikovits, a professor of philosophy at the University of Massachusetts in Boston, education through the metaverse offers great possibilities, but raises problems that must be solved before the full leap towards this technology can be made: academic freedom could be taken at risk if the taught sessions take place on private platforms; the presence of factors that may distract the student during the session (yes, announcements, alarms and sounds that are common in digital environments), the lack of non-verbal communication and metalanguage that avatars cannot yet imitate in the meter , the educational experience that occurs outside the classroom and, finally, student data privacy issues.

There is still a long way to go, but it is a fact that the metaverse is beginning to become part of our reality and will be part of our educational environment as well. And as the ICT of Monterrey has shown: it’s much closer than we imagine.