EDITORIAL: METAVERSE, BETWEEN ECOLOGY OF VIRTUAL AND PHENOMENOLOGY OF EXPERIENCE

Abstract

On 11/25/2022 the University of Cassino and Southern Lazio hosted the third edition of the conference "Ubiquity, Presence, Distance". The 2022 edition was dedicated to the theme "Metawelt: Bodies, Interactions, Educations". The event, in its third edition, took place in a particular historical moment: on the one hand, we are downstream of the greatest experimentation of the use of digital technologies in educational contexts, forced experimentation due to the exceptional moment of the pandemic and characterized by the use of technologies that have reached a degree of full maturity; on the other, we are beginning to glimpse the potential, in the educational field, of the new generations of digital environments and tools (Metaverse, Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things). Recent experience underlines the urgency of opening a reflection, in the pedagogical field, on the nature of the tools that will soon revolutionize the web, understood here as a privileged place for the construction of social reality.

Here we collect some of the extensive contributions presented during the event, which saw, at the beginning, the reports, as Keynote Speaker, by prof. Antonio Iannaccone (Institut de psychologie et education, Université de Neuchâtel) and prof. Antonio García Guzmán (Facultad de Educación, Economía y Tecnología de Ceuta). The event then hosted the round table "Metaverse, between ecology of the virtual and phenomenology of experience", with speeches by Giovanni Betta, Fabio Bocci, Giovanni Bonaiuti, Salvatore Colazzo, Loretta Fabbri, Catia Giaconi, Paolina Mulè, Michele Nappi, Francesco Peluso Cassese, Maria Ranieri, Maurizio Sibilio, Giuseppe Spadafora. Six parallel sessions followed, structured as follows: Panel 1: Bodies Panel 2: Environments Panel 3: Media Panel 4: Interactions Panel 5: Inclusions Panel 6: Educations.