The internet of everything: a nova conexão planetária

The potential of virtual world technologies to improve teaching and learning has been recognized in recent years, creating new possibilities for teaching and learning processes, with virtual environments impacting the achievement of student learning and collaboration. Learning in Metaverses: Co-Existing in Real Virtuality discusses a better way to understand this new learning universe, exploring the possibilities of new social organization through the use of avatars in virtual worlds. Examining platforms such as Web 3D, metaverse, MDV3D, ECODI, hybrid living and sharing spaces, gamification, alternate reality, mingled reality, and augmented reality to evaluate the possibilities for their implementation in education, this reference book will be of use to academics, educators, students, researchers, gamers, and professionals.

New mobile platforms, connected seamlessly to the Internet via wireless access, become increasingly more powerful as each day passes. Smartphones and tablet computers, as well as other ultraportable devices, have already gained enough critical mass to be considered mainstream devices, being present in the daily lives of millions of higher education students. Whole firms, devoted solely to developing high-quality and high engagement content to these devices, have emerged, populating an application market of thousands of teaching applications (apps) focused on diverse higher education topics, from physics and calculus to anatomy and law. Many universities throughout the world have already adopted or are planning to adopt mobile technologies in many of their courses as a better way to connect students with the subjects they are studying. These new mobile platforms allow students to access content anywhere/anytime to immerse himself/herself into that content (alone or interacting with teachers or colleagues via web communication forms) and to interact with that content in ways that were not previously possible (via touch and voice recognition technologies, for instance). The study of such technologies and their possible uses for higher education, as well as the impacts they can have on stimulating more active participation and engagement with the course subjects and research in higher education, while at the same time fostering collaboration among students and even different institutions, is the goal of the proposed chapter. Through the evaluation of the teacher/student acceptance and adoption of such mobile technologies, this chapter plans to provide a thorough overview of the possibilities and consequences of mobile learning in higher education environments as a gateway to ubiquitous learning – perhaps the ultimate form of learner engagement, since it allows the student to learn, access and interact with important content in any way or at any time or place she/he might want.

Using virtual environments (VEs) is a safer and cost-effective alternative to training people in different contexts. Immersive Virtual Reality (VR), combined with game aspects, have the potential to improve the user experience in the VE by increasing realism, engagement, and motivation. In education, there is a consensus about its contribution in the teaching and learning processes. However, in Brazil, only a few research groups have developed projects that involve the development of VR for education, due to technical difficulties and high costs. This manuscript presents the development and evaluation of an VR serious game to support the learning of neuroanatomy, an extended version of our previously published paper at the SVR 2020. In this version, we present the results of four different user studies, involving 57 participants, which suggest that the VR Neuro Game is easy to use, even by inexperienced subjects in VR, and is potentially useful for teaching and learning processes, both by individual students and groups of students and also in remote learning. In addition, the game was considered fun and did not cause discomfort. When comparing the knowledge test performance before and immediately after the experiments, we found significant difference only for the virtual condition. The same could be observed for retention results.

A tecnologia de metaverso tem se destacado recentemente a partir de duas abordagens. A primeira compreende os metaversos como sistemas multiusuários de criação de mundos em 2D/3D. A segunda propõe o “Metaverso do mundo ‘real’” e utiliza realidade aumentada no mundo físico para ampliar e potencializar experiências humanas. Baseados nesse contexto, buscamos discorrer sobre como os metaversos desafiam as práticas comunicativas e a interação na educação. Apresentamos as principais abordagens do metaverso com o propósito de evidenciar novos habitares e potencializar a Educação On-LIFE. Inspirados no método cartográfico de pesquisa-intervenção, identificamos pistas que permitem inferir que o metaverso favorece a passagem da compreensão de comunicação para um novo modo, trazendo um habitar comunicativo onde comunicar, interagir e cocriar implicam habitar um habitat.

M-learning has been tested and investigated in the last decade in different levels of education, from K12 to higher education. However, academic studies reporting concrete m-learning experiences in the corporate environment are still rare. Considering this gap of knowledge, this paper analyzes two cases of corporate m-learning using COMTEXT® (a Mobile Virtual Learning Environment – MVLE, developed by the authors). It discusses the different elements involved in m-learning practices in organizations, including: (1) ergonomic, technological and pedagogical affordances; (2) limitations of mobile and wireless technology use in corporate m-learning; (3) methodologies and learning tools that can be applied; (4) the intricacies between the different types of mobility involved in m-learning activities in a corporate environment.