While the future of education was being rewritten with the developing technology, universities started to teach their students about virtual systems of the new world such as Metaverse and NFT. There is great interest in the Introduction to the Virtual Universe course at Yildiz Technical University (YTU), where these systems are studied.
331 students from different departments attend the course, which started in the Spring semester of 2021-2022. We were a guest in a lecture at YTU to find answers to the questions of what topics are covered in the Metaverse course, how are the application techniques, and whether the students found what they were looking for in this course. We experienced the virtual world with students. We took a tour of the university’s virtual campus.
The course started with theoretical knowledge. While the course, in which the development stages of the internet have been studied since the first day of its introduction into our lives, continued with the explanation of virtual reality technologies, the historical process of VR glasses technology was also discussed. When it was time to practice, students were presented with high-tech VR glasses after the primitive mobile VR glasses called cardboard. Some of the students who entered the ‘meta’ world for the first time were excited, while others shuddered at the feeling of virtual reality. For the first time, we experienced the feeling of flying to the roof of the building with an elevator by managing the avatar in the application called Rec Room.
YTU Faculty of Art and Design faculty member Assoc. Dr. Ertan Toy explained the details of the lesson he gave for the first time this year:
FUTURE MEETING COURSE
Metaverse, with a simple definition, is a set of platforms that offer an opportunity to do the interactions we do in the physical world, in the virtual world, and even do things that are not possible in the real world. With the world’s giant companies investing in this field and the establishment of an ecosystem here, the need to teach such a lesson was felt. We created a course structure by integrating blockchain technology into our augmented reality course we gave earlier. An overview of all the areas covered by the curriculum metaverse concept. Our students who take this course perceive the basis of the platforms on which the metaverse world is built. This is an introduction to the future lesson. There is a lot of disinformation about the Metaverse. It is not right to consider internet resources in this regard. We rely on academic data and resources.
STUDENTS LINED FOR THE COURSE
Our Rector Prof. Dr. At Tamer Yilmaz‘s request, we started working on opening a metaverse lesson and we designed a small lesson including the application. However, interest in the course increased constantly. We started with 50 students, now we have 331 students. I attribute their interest to the phenomenon of curiosity.
Gizem Yavuzyilmaz, 2nd year Industrial Engineering: Even though it is far from my field, I chose it because I was curious. I am also very interested in crypto. We see how much technology has developed in this course and it sheds light on the future.
Ozan Karagoren Faculty of Economics 1st year: It was a different experience. When I put on the glasses, I took an elevator in the virtual world and went up to the top floor of the building with that elevator. When the elevator door opened, there was a board in front of me and a city in front of me. Before I dropped myself off that board, I really felt like I was on the edge of a cliff. Before I came to the class, I did not know that I would have such an experience.
As the metaverse universe and metaverse investments continue to evolve every day, what do you think about it?
