Guest Editorial The Metaverse and the Future of Education

The metaverse is seen as an evolution paradigm of the next-generation Internet, able to support a diverse range of persistent and always-on interconnected synchronous multiuser virtual environments where people can engage with others in real time, merging the physical and virtual world [1], [2], [3]. The concept was first mentioned in 1992s Neal Stephenson novel "Snow Crash" [4], and it follows the web and mobile Internet revolutions, allowing users to experience virtual environments in an immersive and hyperspatiotemporal manner [1]. Thus, it represents a paradigm shift in digital interaction, enabling real-time, multidimensional experiences that transcend the boundaries of physical space with the promise of bringing new levels of social connection and collaboration. The metaverse exists within the Internet, but not in the traditional way of seeing the world through a screen [1]. Instead, the metaverse aims to provide immersive experiences based on the convergence of spatial computing technologies that enable multisensory user interactions [e.g., virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and mixed reality (MR)] [2], [3] combined with 3-D data and artificial intelligence. The metaverse is also related to the concept of digital twins (DTs), which are digital replicas of elements in the real world (e.g., assets and processes) that mirror and synchronize in real time with their source, creating a bidirectional connection between them. While DTs focus more on the bidirectional connection between real and virtual and the accuracy of the representation toward better decision-making, the metaverse looks at sociotechnical challenges of seamless embodied communication between users and the dynamic interactions with the virtual spaces.