Media - knowledge - education: augmented and virtual realities

Models and applications for augmented and virtual realities are booming: They come across as apps on smartphones, as avatars and assistive technologies, in the form of virtual communities, soundscapes, organisations, operating rooms, games and products of all kinds. On the one hand, the paradox here is that in many spheres of life, the information and communication technology conditions of processes of medialisation, mediatisation and normalisation are becoming so obscure that alternative options of development hardly seem conceivable. On the other hand, pragmatic motives of routine practices, medial convenience or monetarisability cannot hide the fact of a widespread discomfort in media cultures of digitality.

Digital technologies of extension, enhancement and virtualisation are increasingly being tested and developed in learning and educational contexts. The spectrum ranges from early media education to virtual universities, from workplace learning to the use of photorealistic 3D replica of one's own person in relationship-ecological contexts. As in the context of fundamental historical media shifts, euphoric and skeptical perspectives can also be identified here.

Central questions in this context are: What significance can augmented and virtual realities have in educational contexts? How do dynamics of the mechanisation of educational and knowledge spaces relate to tendencies of normalisation and naturalisation of media usage contexts? To what extent can learning potentials and educational values be identified in the networks of virtual infrastructures and in the repertoires of media-cultural practices?