Lessons in the metaverse
What
Design and Consultancy
Year
2023
Category
UX / UI, Innovation, Education
Technology
Spatial, AR/VR
Client
To realize your project
How it all started
During the lectures for the course “Economics and Management of Enterprises and Business Models,” Professor Paola Pisano, lecturer at the University of Turin and former Minister for Innovation and Digitalisation, dedicated a portion of her module to an innovative educational experiment conducted in the metaverse. This was made possible through the technological support of Meta and Synesthesia.
The project was promoted by the degree program in Social Innovation, Communication, and New Technologies, in collaboration with the Department of Culture, Politics, and Society, as well as the Department of Economics and Statistics “Cognetti De Martiis.”
The results of the project were positive, opening up future possibilities for the use of metaverse-related technologies in university lectures.
The solution
The lecture in the metaverse aimed to explore the use of technologies in education. During the experiment, the ICT degree program collaborated directly with Meta, which provided technological support, and Synesthesia, which handled the design of the environment and characters using Spatial, one of the leading virtual collaboration platforms.
An interesting detail is that the avatars used during the simulation were created with both gendered and “neutral” characteristics, meaning they were not identifiable by gender. Additionally, sociologists and psychologists were involved during the lecture to closely observe the course of the sessions.
Results
The project results were highly positive:
- Virtual reality made the lecture more engaging and motivating for students compared to traditional methods.
- Students had the opportunity to test a technology that many had never experienced before.
- There was a noticeable increase in their ability to apply theoretical concepts presented during the initial phase of the course.
- The students practised negotiations in the metaverse, improving their soft skills, such as understanding context and managing discussions to achieve better outcomes using avatars.
“From day one, Synesthesia approached the project not only as a technological provider but as an integral part of the University of Turin team. The project was developed comprehensively and flawlessly – from design to communication – meeting deadlines, identifying potential issues before they arose, proactively suggesting solutions, and building a strong relationship with researchers, professors, and students. Synesthesia’s approach is invaluable for all public and private organisations, like the University of Turin, that must tackle innovation and digital transformation projects quickly, using often unexplored technologies while adhering to bureaucratic constraints and rigorous methods to ensure the scientific validity of every process”.
(Professor Paola Pisano, former Minister for Innovation and Digitalisation).
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