Brazilian Experiences in Metaverse

This chapter presents and discusses some experiences linked to the research in the context of the Digital Education Research Group UNISINOS/CNPq, which was developed in Brazil from the use of different technologies in metaverses. The following subtopics are approached: “AWSINOS: A World of Learning” (performed in metaverses Eduverse), “UNISINOS Island,” and “RICESU Island” (Second Life and Open Wonderland). As the main conclusion of chapter, learning in metaverse is understood as human beings' effective action within metaverses, present in the history of the structural coupling emerging in an inseparable world, in its way of life, showing there is also a cultural issue. In this process, the authors try to build elements to allow the development of innovative pedagogical practices, proper for this historic time and social space.

Autopoietic Machines and Alopoietic Machines

This chapter approaches the issues involving Autopoietic and Alopoietic machines, under the perspective of structural coupling that appears in the interaction and interactivity in Metaverses. The authors present and discuss the subtopic “Autopoietic Machines: The Human Beings.” In the subtopic “Alopoietic Machines: The Nature of the Metaverse,” the authors explore the concept of alopoietic machines in relation to digital technology. In “Structural Coupling,” they define the concept based on the theory of Maturana and Varela (2002). The concept of autopoietic machines is extended through the subtopic “Language: Mode of Speech and Emotion.” In as a brief conclusion, the authors describe three different situations that contribute to the broadening of the concept of structural coupling.

Cognition and Socio-Cognition in Metaverse

This chapter presents and discusses different cognitive and socio-cognitive mechanisms that appear in the interaction between subject-avatars, and between subject-avatars and the 3D Digital Virtual World, constructed in the Metaverses, based on the results from the Digital Education Research Group GPe-dU UNISINOS/CNPq. In these contexts, the authors analyze how perception and representation occurs, the acts of doing, understanding, and raising awareness, and finally, enabling collaboration and cooperation in individual and social interaction with Metaverses. As the main conclusion, the experience built in the subjects' living and collaborating, represented by their avatars, and with MDV3D, favors learning processes, regarding the technical and didactic-pedagogic ownership of metaverse technology, as well as the execution of awareness processes about how learning occurs in these contexts.

The Real Virtuality of Metaverses

This chapter approaches the Real Virtuality theme that appears in the construction processes of Digital Virtual World in 3D in Metaverses. The authors present and discuss subtopics like “Virtuality and Reality: Virtual Reality Experiences and Real Virtuality Experiences in Immersive Learning,” “The Simultaneousness of Worlds: From the Digital Virtual Space of Coexistence to the Space of Hybrid and Multimodal Coexistence,” “The Culture of Real Virtuality.” The chapter concludes that it is possible to understand that i-Learning, through the Real Virtuality Experiences and Virtual Reality Experiences, may represent an effective possibility to subjects' education nowadays. In this context, the authors believe it is fundamental to (re) think Education for the current generation, the prospect of a Network Society, a Cultural Hybridism and Multimodality.

The Metaverse

This chapter approaches the rise of Metaverse Technologies in their 3D Digital Virtual Worlds, as a possibility that arises in the context of network learning culture, using the perspective of an emerging paradigm, linked to Teaching and Learning in Networked Society. We will present some of the main existing metaverses and discuss the capabilities and limits of this technology for learning with mobility. We will approach subtopics such as: Metaverse Technology and the nature of 3D Digital Virtual World; Second Life Metaverses; Opensource Metaverses; Metaverses in mobile devices: potentialities for Mobile Learning, as well as a brief conclusion to the chapter.

Teaching and Learning in the Networked Society

This chapter presents and discusses some concepts that will contribute to a reflection on how to teach and how to learn in a Networked Digital Virtual Society. The authors present and discuss subtopics like Networked Society; Information and Knowledge; Teaching, Learning, and Development (What is information? What is learning? How do we learn? What is knowledge? How do we know? What is development? How does knowledge differ from learning and from information?); “Homo Zappiens” Generation (Who are they and how does the digital-native “Homo Zappiens” Generation learn? And how can we, teachers and professors from the analogical generation, become “digitally naturalized”?); and a brief conclusion, where the authors present some factors that can contribute to minimizing the “gap” between generations, bringing them together for the construction of a dialogical relationship in education.

Digital Virtual Culture in Metaverse

In this chapter, the authors approach Culture in Metaverse as Digital Virtual Cultures, or as the Metaculture of Metaculture. They present and discuss subtopics like “The Digital Virtual Culture,” “Digital Virtual Culture in Metaverse,” “Metaculture Formation in Virtual Digital Coexistence in Metaverse.” They finish with a brief conclusion about the chapter's evidence that the essence of the living and collaborating, the eagerness of “being together,” the sharing, the emoting, the underground power, the imagination, and the dynamics human beings create in their daily lives take part in the construction of all types of culture. They seek to understand “culture” the way it is.

Digital Virtual Sharing Spaces

This chapter deals with ways of living and socializing in the context of digital technological hybridism. The authors begin the discussion with the sub-topic, “Digital Virtual Life?” After that, they deal with living in digital virtual spaces of sharing and/or sharing of a digital virtual nature. Finally, they talk about configuring the digital virtual sharing space: society networking in the era of avatars. The authors conclude the chapter with a view of hybridism, where it is no longer possible to distinguish the individual and the social, the natural, and the technological.

Nomadic Hybridism

In this chapter, the authors approach the perspective of Nomadic Hybridism that appears from the interaction of subject-avatars as digital technologies, mainly with the Metaverse technology, in a space of flow. They present and discuss subtopics like “Space of Flow, Nomadism, and Interculturalism,” “Digital Virtual Nomadism or Metanomadism.” The conclusion about the chapter is that hybridism and nomadism, even being different elements, are mutually empowering. In other words, the hybrid context makes evident the difference and triggers mobility of other differences. The possibility of being anywhere and/or everywhere contributes to the capacity of articulating, relating, and consequently, mingling.

Digital Virtual Communities in Metaverse

This chapter discusses the process of forming Digital Virtual Communities in the Metaverse. The authors present and discuss subtopics like “Communities: Historical and Concept Aspects and Characteristics,” “Digital Virtual Learning Communities,” “Digital Virtual Learning and Practice Communities,” “Digital Virtual Learning and Practice Communities in Metaverses.” As a main conclusion, it is possible to say that another perspective and tendency for Digital Virtual Communities of Learning and Practice lies in the nomadic-hybrid-multimodal Digital Virtual Communities of Learning and Practice, which means they use different technologies of any kind, including games and simulations in fixed or mobile devices at any time and space, in coexistence with spaces of action and interaction of the physical world face. Thus, it is possible to say that the current generation lives, collaborates, inhabits, co-inhabits, and inhabits-and-co-inhabits new spaces, made of and in the communities created, not living in one space, in one community, in one world and one universe.