It’s the convergence that counts
AI, VR, SpatialOS and more
Hello Michael!
Long time :)
I think you may have missed my point or perhaps I didn’t articulate it well. What I was trying to say was that, when they first appear, we tend to think of technologies in isolation and as a result imagine a kind of linear progression. For example, the internet replacing libraries and develop accordingly. But the reality, in my opinion, is that it’s only when technologies converge that the magic really happens. The mobile phone would hardly be interesting had it not converged with the internet and this is when exponential change happens.
From an educational technology, or EdTech, perspective what we’re seeing is a sort of EdTech 1.0 where it’s being used to digitise existing retrograde practices rather than imagining what might be possible when certain technologies converge.
So this is where I must take issue with you. I have been working with AI & VR platforms since the early 80’s. In those days AI was limited by the datasets it could examine to develop heuristics not to mention computing power. VR in those days was like strapping a desktop tower PC to your face.
I grant you that there is an awful lot of hyberbole and bullshit talked about AI and VR these days and especially in EdTech circles however I dispute with you that they are not ready for primetime. Education moves slowly to adopt new technologies and at geological speed to develop new pedagogies that embed them. As for perpetual immersive 3D worlds with their own rules exists today in the form of SpatialOS as one example.
Individually I don’t think these technologies will make that much difference to education, school and learning. They will be merely used to reinforce 19th century teaching practice as we can already see by the likes of those companies who see AI, for example, as an extention to their already sketchy learning analytic algorithms. But when they converge, as is my canard, we will see a real shift, a real change of thinking.
Remember that education is usually a good 30 years behind and, in my mind, that is a problem.
Cheers
Graham
