Virtual Reality has been heralded as being the next platform. The next major shift in digital technologies and how we interact with them. I’ve been keeping an eye out for the next ‘big thing’ for a while, we moved into Web 2.0 pretty seamlessly, and I was left wondering what would be next? We have had a few really fun next digital devices emerge, such as Smart Watches and curved TV screens, but still I thought, what is next? I must admit the whole curved TV screen didn’t grab me,but now I get it – for VR its going to be a pretty useful screen! Virtual Reality (VR) is going to be the next big shift in how we interact with digital technologies and tools – don’t think VR is Second Life or a similar such experience – it is much more than that. In the short term it is going to transform how we play platform games; Playstation, Xbox and the like already have some VR games, but this is going to expand enormously. The Headsets we currently use will keep improving, get smaller, less tricky to use until we see the new editions of platform games games coming with VR headsets. The move towards VR games means that there will be more intuitive programming that responds to what we do, how we move or the decisions we make via the headsets. Pretty realistic, already the graphics are at a stage that I know I want to step into and experience, so with the headsets we can achieve that.

Beyond gaming, VR will transform other parts of our lives. At the moment I am working on a VR world for pre-service teachers, a place for them to practice their skills, acquire ones that are tricky to really experience (such as talking to parents) and generally experience the same types of learning and teaching they do whilst on placements in schools. We have a set of Oculus Rift headsets we are using, but I am itching to try Google Cardboard. At present Google Cardboard relies on your smartphone to turn the headset into a VR world, this is pretty limited by the number of VR apps on the marketplace – it will change, so for a reasonable $40 you could have a headset that when combined with your phone becomes a VR world.

So its pretty clear we are on the way – Facebook announced its purchase of Oculus Rift and their intent to invest heavily in this area and they are not alone. We have all been thinking online learning has been a huge change in how we teach and learn, imagine the impact VR will have in this space? Out sense of place is going to become a thing of the past, we will no longer be tethered to a spot but instead we will enter another space altogether. I’m wondering what this will do to our mobile devices – our smartphones, tablets, iPads, watches – how will these adopt to VR? Curved TVs were ahead of their field, being very suited to VR.

I’m excited by the next desks and platforms that are being developed that will carry us and host us in the VR space – perhaps classrooms of the future will be comprised of a network of individuals widely dispersed yet situated in one of these devices linked together in a VR space?

Its probably not news to anyone, considering I have run a couple of MOOCs but I think the future of learning will be Open Course ware-based. Pretty frightening prediction to make considering that I am teaching and working in Higher Education, many people working in this context view Open Course ware as a straight up challenge to everything we do. But my point is that it doesn’t have to be. I work in a pretty progressive university, we have been in the MOOC space for a few years now, have signed up to edX and we have some great projects at the university-level exploring how we can change and keep current in such a climate. I like that we are thinking of how we can harness these innovations rather than compete with them, because I think that would be a mistake. I attended the STARS 2015 conference in Melbourne this year and I listened to a keynote that really made me think. At the Australian National University they have a program called the Bachelor of Philosophy and its utterly innovative, students don’t follow program pathways, they choose anything and everything to study in their degree – it might be literature and engineering subjects, it might be any combination that they view as having meaning for them. This was a truly personalized degree. It struck a chord, as who are we to determine or decide for people which subjects and in which order they should be studied in -we need to throw away such linear pathways. Did the world stop turning when this was handed over to the students to decide? No. For professionally accredited programs there is often little choice, but perhaps we should move into the American system of broad undergraduate degrees and professional qualifications acquired via graduate programs? Might be an answer to all of the varied criticisms being meted out on the current generation. Just a thought.

So how does this fit in with open course-ware? Well put that flexibility and choice into the online space – what if we were to study degrees that were a mixed and varied combination of offerings from many different sources of higher learning providers? For example, I could complete a degree online by mainly completing subjects from the ‘home’ institution I enrolled in, but within that degree I could do units from Oxford University, Harvard or other such bastions of learning. Pretty exciting idea, and what if I did all of this via open course-ware? These top-level institutions are already dominating this space and leading the way, they have had the confidence to join this movement, so the rest of us should get a wriggle on and dive in. If I were selecting a university to put on my TISC form I would want a really exciting combination of offerings, I would want the big names, the flexibility of doing it online and I would want a combination of subjects that makes me unique and employable. Pretty persuasive vision isn’t it?

At the moment I am seriously addicted to Trivia Crack but really I’m coming to my end of the addiction. I’ve been playing it for about 5 weeks and I’m starting to reach the point where I think “blah blah”. This got me thinking, over the last couple of years I have become a really shallow gamer – I wasn’t always like this, I was a huge fan of getting deep inside a particular game, really loved the layers of complexities and storylines that emerged. But I did that kind of gaming on my laptop – it required that kind of device to operate, but as I’ve become more reliant upon my iPhone, the types of games I now play are a bit more shallow and my love for them is transient at best. As with most of the digitally-connected world I’ve worked my way through the usual suspects; beginning with Words with Friends (didn’t everyone start with this?), Candy Crush, Cookie Jam, Bubble Witch, Candy Crush Soda and now Trivia Crack. Writing that list (and sadly these are only the ones I will own up to playing on my blog, there are others…..) started me wondering – why am I so fickle? Why do I lose interest so quickly?  Is it because they are essentially the same kind of game and I get bored? I’m not sure and I think game makers are starting to ponder this too. King.com the company behind Candy Crush Saga posted an 11% fall in profits last week, significantly they predict the same kind of drop in the next financial quarter too – clearly the tide is turning and they have stated that it was their failure to understand the changing nature of the market and not coming out with enough new games, that resulted in this drop. This got me thinking are companies having to pour out and produce new games constantly in a bid to capture market share? Is a single, good game not enough? Makes you think about the market and as consumers the demands we make. We seem to need constant new stimulation, we want the latest, the coolest, the most fun game we can find – high pressure indeed. So here is the question, has the digital world made us more shallow? I am beginning to think yes.

As I was driving to work today I heard a rather interesting statistic – Australia is one of the top countries for dodgy downloading on the internet. I’m not surprised, because if I mention Torrents or downloading, most people I know have either tried it, do it or know about it.   That is pretty impressive. I had thought with new programs such as iPlayer or iTunes, the need for these kinds of behaviors might have dwindled. Apple TV made a huge impact on me, I loved it as I didn’t need to sign up to Foxtel or some other cable provider and I could pay for shows I wanted to watch, nothing else. YouTube fills the gaps for me, if I cannot find it on Apple TV, then watch it there. So the need for dodgy downloads was starting to diminish…..or so I thought. Apparently we are still hard at it here in Australia, lagging behind countries like China, Japan and Korea. So what triggered all of this? The launch of Netflix on 24th March. Netflix is a much whispered about, much anticipated online “cable tv” offering and I think its largely due to the fact that its web-based (so everyone can access it, not just those who subscribe, get a cable box, pay for installation etc) and because of the success of some of its shows (House of Cards? Orange is the new Black?). This got me thinking, is the internet slowly replacing one-by-one each of the different technologies in our lives? Are we going to be totally web-based in the near future? Will television and cable disappear? All of this is exciting on one hand, as our mobile devices are internet ready, so there is no limit to what we do, where we do it or when. But imagine if the internet went down………imagine a world with no alternative. I know that when I have left my phone at home, or if the battery goes flat (horror of horrors) I barely cope, but its usually only for a short period of time. Imagine an extended period of no internet……..worrying. So are we overly reliant on it? Yes. Should we be wary of committing 100% of our lives to it? Yes.

I’m a list maker. I love compiling new to do lists, organizing my diary and there is nothing compared to the feeling of crossing something off my list. I even get a little glow from flicking back through my pages in my diary and see all the work, meetings or things I have done. Quite sad really I know. But what all of these lists and diary-keeping isn’t really doing is getting me to do all those things on my list, I’ll get through a fair bit of them, but I generally fail to achieve list nirvana and cross everything off. Recently I’ve gone to the next level and embraced digital organizers. I’ve played around with Microsoft Project in the past but found it to be too big, too detailed and just too much to use easily. Also, at home my computers are all Macbooks so that meant no MS Project. I looked around for something I could use on all of my devices and settled on Trello – its capacity for you to build lots of project boards is great, its free (very important) and I can use it on my laptops, work computers, ipad and even my phone. So over the last few weeks I’ve been busily building my lists, getting organized and generally playing around in Trello. So, here is the big question – has it made me more organized? Well, I wonder. The constant consulting of my boards and lists is keeping everything in my mind, and I think this has made me get through it all. Its something I keep looking at, annotating and therefore maintaining a focus on the things I wanted to get done. I think this is the secret of digital organizers, they keep you focused on the things you would like to get done, give you opportunities to make annotations or re-configure your lists if you cannot do something by the time you set, or if you encounter a hurdle or something you need to adjust. They give you a sense of being in control of the crazy mayhem that at times, is your life. When it all gets too overwhelming, you breathe, you make a new board on Trello and the visage of control is achieved. In essence, I think these types of tools make you a better person. I’m certainly feeling that way. Of course there is a catch to all of this organization – you have to log on – you have to actually consult your Trello. The alarms, reminders or other notifications you set up wont work unless you log in. So if you want to avoid facing the list of tasks NOT done, then you don’t log on. Easy. Default back to being a messy, disorganized version of yourself. What we need is an automatic log in when you turn on your device…..that way you cannot hide or avoid your Trello……..