Living in the metaverse?

Augmented reality: the real world extended

Adding and enhancing the real world with some kind of information is booming now. It is often described as augmented reality. Using Internet, rfid, gps, smart tags and portable or wearable information can add substantial information to real life objects. 3-D environments offer ideal spaces for social and economic experimentation.

At the MIT some researchers think we will have a kind of 3-D metaverse, in which the boundaries between real world and virtual worlds are blurring rapidly. They assume that, by the end of 2011, 80% of all internet users will have created virtual selves.

Depending on age and culture the question is what the effects of these new possibilities could have on the development and perception and learning of people.

In Japan many working man and woman are accustomed to a kind of virtual state of being, in which imagination and desire are mixed to a world that is called "mizu shobai".
In the novel "Norwegian Wood"from the japanese author Haruki Murakami, something of this culturally determined behavior can be felt.

Living in virtual worlds has been growing gradually. When children are in a
car, they have already the experience of an inside and an outside world. Hearing
the radio in the car, saying that there is an accident in front of them,
suddenly seeing the terrible results from the car, causes already the basic
effect of a split world.

The extend of these experiences, leading to a state of living in which we are immersed in these areas in which reality and virtuality are constantly mixed, is larger and widespread over more people than before.

From a point of neuropsychology and mathetics, there could be very rich moments in such experiences. Research however is scarce and not always reliable and valid enough.

Toys for the boys... and girls??

Is the appreciation for toys a matter of nature, or does nurture play a role? For decades we are struggling with this question. In the seventies parents tried to force boys to play with "girls toys" and the girls were surprised with boys toys.

Research on rhesus monkeys shows us that part of the preference for toys is nurture, and for the larger part dictated by hormons . (Janice M. Hassett, Erin R. Siebert and Kim Wallen: Sex differences in rhesus monkey toy preferences parallel those of children. Hormones and behavior, Volume 54, Issue 3, August 2008, pages 359 - 364) Similar research with children shows comparable results.

When girls had the disease congenital adrenal hyperplasia, they produced more male hormons and their preference for toys changed significant.

In the experiment from Hassett boys preferred to play with a car, instead of dolls. Girls are more flexible in their toy preference, but tend to play with dolls.

Other research (2002, in:Evolution and Human behavior) shows however that males had hardly preferences, where girls liked to play with dolls.

The assumption now is that the actual preference comes form the fact that boys are triggered by things that move and enable action. Their play is rough and tumble. Hormons are responsible for those triggering and as a result the brain forms different patterns.

The findings could be of importance for kindergarten and preschools, in which sometimes the post emancipatoric philosophy of equal treatment for both sexes, also regarding toys, is practiced. When mathetic learning at this age is forced in an impropriate way, there could be undesired consequences that obstruct optimal learning.

Brain based learning: a myth?

Cognitive scientists warn against too early adoption of results coming from neuroscience experiments. They make clear that most of the sometimes exciting research has to do with efforts to figure out how our brain works. There are not always immediate consequences for educational practice.

As an example the "Mozart effect" is mentioned. It has
to do with the myth that classical music is an important form of sensory
stimulation. It al started with a scientific paper, reporting that college-students showed a short increase in spational reasoning, after listening to a Mozart pianosonata, compared to other students who experienced silence or instructions to relax (Rauscher, Shaw, Ky (1993))
When other researchers tried to reproduce the effect, some were succesfull,
but the majority failed (Chabris, 1999). The assumption now is that
the effect has nothing to do with Mozart or classical music as such, but rather to a boost in mood and arousal (Thomson, Schellenberg, Husain, 2001).

However the findings from the experiment were interpreted by the media and
the mass as "music makes you smarter". People started to give a diet of
classical music to babies and young children. The governor of Georgia gave a CD
with classical music to every new born in his state and in Florida every
state-funded childcare had to play classical music to children under the age of
six. It would have been better to give each child a book (in Georgia) because
there is rather much research indicating that being read to makes a young child
smarter. That evidence is much more stronger than the weak "Mozart effect"
hypothesis.

What can we expect? Our better understanding of the brain is bound to lead to improved classroom practice in the very near future. A deep understanding of the brain will correspond with a deep understanding of the mind. And that could have consequences for our approach to education. One of the field is our better understanding of learning disorders. The other field could be the mathetic learning processes.

Neuropsychology and Montessori

In Montessori schools the principles of neurobiology and neuropsychology are beyond the point of introduction. This summer, attention will be paid to the so called brain based education, during a special summer course, organized by the A.M.I., University of Muenster and Edith Stein/OCT school of education in Hengelo (Netherlands). In a special videoconferencing session Prof. Steve Hughes will share his ideas with participants of the course.

The brain based approach could be seen as one of the theories behind mathetic learning, according to it's outcomes.

Neurocognition and mathetics

It took some time but now the Netherlands are seeing the importance of neurocognition for learning and education. Books, articles and attention in the newspaper do their work. At the University of Maastricht is a new special professor for neuroscience from perceptual learning and attention.
His research focuses on brain processes during observation from stimuli, arriving at the skin and the retina and focusing on how this is modeled through attention and learning.

Research is in cooperation with several Universities, amongst them the University of Coimbra and a Network of European Neuroscience Institutes (ENI)

educational technology needs neuroscience

Educational technologists have to look at the research results of neuroscientists. That is what Prof. Wim Veen claims in his presentation, also in Berlin. For those able to read Dutch a quote from the interview.

"Als ik al het onderzoek overzie, heb ik de indruk dat we voor
een periode staan waarin we als onderwijskundigen veel meer moeten samenwerken
met neuroscientists. We weten namelijk helemaal niet goed hoe die hersenen
werken. We weten wel dat delen van de hersenen zich fysiek ontwikkelen als
mensen bepaalde oefeningen vaak doen. Dat zal waarschijnlijk ook zo zijn voor
het werken met computers. De vraag is of mensen daardoor ook beter leren. We
hebben echter nog nooit kunnen aantonen dat leren achter de computer beter gaat
dan in het klaslokaal of andersom. Maar dat is voor mij ook niet zo relevant.
Stel dat eruitkomt: het cognitief effect is hetzelfde. Moeten we het dan maar
niet doen?"

Neuroscience

The importance of neuroscience is recognized by a growing amount of teachers.

Neuropsychology is an essential part of the knowledge basis in mathetics. Some usefull sites here.

• Neuroscience for children.
• How do facts stick in our mind?
• How many brains do we have? Site for children.