This Episode will air at 5 30 pm EDT on Saturday November 6th

Life and Learning in the Metaverse, with Adam Seldow and Monica Arés from Meta

The metaverse is envisioned as the successor to the mobile internet — a set of interconnected digital spaces that lets you do things you can’t do in the physical world. A key feature is that it will be characterized by social presence, the feeling that you’re right there with another person, no matter where in the world you happen to be. In keeping with that vision, Facebook has a new brand for the company, Meta, to better reflect its focus moving forward. This is an exciting new chapter for the company, and Adam and Monica are excited to help bring learning in the metaverse to life. While the metaverse is still a ways off, parts of it are already here — and even more are on the horizon. This episode will describe work in development to improve virtual and augmented reality as we know them now and the steps that can help realize the full social potential of the metaverse in the future. More about our guests below the video.

Episode Guests

Adam Seldow is the Director of Education Partnerships at Facebook where he oversees teams focused on learning in the Metaverse initiatives and partnerships supporting worldwide education. Previously, he served as an officer in the United States Army. At the start of his career in education, he taught high school math in Boston Public Schools. Following his years teaching, he led technology in public school systems, orchestrating one of the largest 1:1 laptop initiatives in the US at the time. Adam earned an Ed.D. and Ed.M from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a B.S. from the United States Military Academy at West Point. 

Monica Ares

Through Virtual and Augmented Reality, Monica empowers people to create and learn in ways they never could before.  She believes that quality content, creation tools, and virtual presence are powering what’s possible in immersive learning.  As a former educator of 10 years and Harvard Graduate School of Education alum, Monica is thrilled to be developing solutions to make learning more powerful and accessible.  At Facebook, Monica is the Head of Meta Immersive Learning, where she focuses on increasing access to learning through technology, developing the next generation of metaverse creators, and building high-quality immersive experiences that transform the way we learn.