ASALH Preserving Black History on the Metaverse
Using Immersive Technologies
William Jackson, M.Ed.
CEO My Quest To Teach & MetaverseWP & World Metaverse Member
The controversies about the value of Black History in
the educational systems are not new. There have always
been the attempts to change, water-down, deflect,
marginalize, and even hide the truths of the contributions
of Blacks in the history books of American schools.
The act of slavery has erroneously been shown to be
beneficial to those brought over from Africa and the
Caribbean, shackled in chains, beaten, raped, tortured,
and otherwise dehumanized. There was nothing beneficial
to slaves from slavery. Blacks benefitted nothing.
The coming ASALH conference
https://asalh.org/calendar/108th-annual-meeting-and-conference/
in Jacksonville, Florida will address multiple issues regarding Black
History, Black Excellence, Black Values, Black Education, Black
Economics and other important areas of knowledge and heritage.
One area of understanding is how the Metaverse and immersive
technologies can help extend and re-vitalize Black History by sharing
the blending of Black History that is available on the Metaverse and
its ability to be a learning experience in the immersive environments
digitally.
William and Aida Jackson, Certified VR Educators, members of the
World Metaverse Council and advocates of STEAM+M, AI and VR
are teaching the use of virtual reality using headsets, phones,
laptops and other devices that can be used to transport Black’s
back in time to see and hear people like Dr. Martin Luther King’s
speeches. “Now Is The Time” a VR experience
https://about.meta.com/community/vr-for-good/mlk-now-is-the-time/
via the Time Studios’ project “The March 360” and transformative
learning experiences. The metaverse is influencing the direction
of school curriculums, state standards for instruction and the
accuracy of historical evidence.
History should never be changed, modified, and skewed to meet
political agendas. The Metaverse allows for broad-based engagement
and immersive engagements that allow the viewer to be involved,
engaged and learning. This is not relevant to gaming, it is not impactful
to earning high scores or conquering levels, there is a strategic
process to bring Black History to a level of immersive engagement
like never before.
Technologies can promote a more comprehensive education of
Black History among young people, each generation is influenced
creatively, the technology is innovative and far reaching to build
learning opportunities. Virtual Reality is bringing learning to life,
results from VictoryXR show that virtual reality demonstrably has
an effect on students’ learning retention by 70 to 90% improvements
(East Carolina University in 2018).
Morehouse College launched its first Black History course in the
Metaverse in 2022, taking students on a slave ship (Amistad), and
the Civil War and World War I battlegrounds where Black soldiers
fought bravely and valiantly.
Throughout history Blacks have made historic, revolutionary, and
evolutionary additions to the establishment of the United States
of America. Blacks have contributed to every aspect of national
and global inventions and innovation, but where is this
in history books?
There are approximately more than 400 million metaverse users
per month, and metaverse sites number in the thousands provide
an immersive experience that is memorable and applicable.
The movement towards immersive environments is growing and
engaging in new directions for educational pivoting, changing,
evolution and growth.
Educational engagements with learning are being influenced
this year in schools like Becoming Collegiate Academy the first
school in Jacksonville that has a Metaverse site
https://tinyurl.com/yc62pe8m for educational instruction.
Jacksonville is slow to adopt and adapt to the usage of immersive
educational environments for education. Because of the lack of
knowledge and experiences and trained staff this will be a
slow process. Schools like Twin Lakes Academy Middle School
are using tech by managing a Newspaper, Podcast and Metaverse
clubs to share content with the community about what is happening
weekly at the school.
This will be their 3rd year and the positive impact of VR technology on students’ learning is not confined to just one subject area, or one
classroom. Benefits have been demonstrated in nearly all other areas
of learning including foreign languages, problem solving, critical thinking,
the arts, and social sciences and Black and Hispanic History importantly.
Meta-analysis found that “[Virtual Reality]” students express a greater
level of confidence in completing learning tasks and understanding
historical information longer because of the immersive environment. Statistically significant differences existed in exam pass rates between
VR students and non-VR students, with VR students earning higher
scores. Lets move Black History on the Metaverse so the truth can
be seen, heard, engaged and learned by new generations.
Black History instruction can improve with engagement and
immersion benefitting, Black and Hispanic students and those
that thirst for truth and relevance.
The ASALH conference is September 19th to 24th in
Jacksonville, Florida https://asalh.org/
