It is a development that was expected. It has been cooking for a very long time, so don´t be surprised if it soon is arriving. Right into your own laptop. And it will totally change the way you feel about all “these videos” you have worked hard on the last couple of years.
During the last years a lot of educators, including myself, have spent time, a lot of it or just some of it, in order to learn how to make good video-clips. Some of us have finally, even ended up acting like full blown movie-actors. I must say: well played. Really well played. It is not an easy thing going from being an educator in the physical space, to become something like a “YouTuber”.
But now take a look at this. A new service on the market. And expect more of them launching pretty soon (Nvidia for instance showed this to be possible several week ago). Your avatar is now ready to launch. And that means: you, yourself, don´t have to stand in-front of the camera anymore. You can use it on Zoom, Teams or whatever, or when doing a video-clip. It is just plug-and-play.
So, the “only” thing you have to think about now, is the content – what you actually prefer talking about, and in what way. And why you should talk. But “whom” to deliver it, forget it.
Form is gradually loosing its position as a competitive edge.
And what is then left? Content!
By the way: this is also very likely something we can see in the movie-industry. Actors, in average, is probably getting less and less payed. But the ones writing the story, their income is probably untouched. Or perhaps, even increasing. If the only thing left hunting for is the story, then that might be the case.
Well, perhaps the big movie stars, people like Nicole Kidman, Johnny Depp, Charlize Theron, Di Caprio etc might continue to earn good money – they are already established on the market with a strong brand. But the new ones, will they ever evolve? Actors are troublesome people to work with, you know. Wouldn´t it be far nicer working with actors you can rely on, avatars?
You should have tried to become a script-writer, not an actor.
It is also not unlikely that it will take the digital development a pretty long time (even a lot of time?) before it can substitute the ones that know “what”, “why”, and “how”, to learn. But delivering it, ones all that is decided, do now seem to be something we can use digital solutions for, instead of using us living humans.
Love it, or don´t. But don´t be surprised, and bear it in mind. And why not; also use it in order to leverage yourself a bit at this moment?
What will then be the next step here? Why not doing it just like Amazon Kindle-books does? There you as a reader can decide for yourself for instance what “fonts” you want to read the book with. So why not let the “students” further on decide what avatar they prefer.
Yes, who are actually we “as educators” to know what avatar the one watching prefer to get the message delivered with? Or in other words; Is it, from your point of view, better if I decide who I want to be, or if you do it for me?
There is more coming in this direction. If anything, at least that, you can definitely rely on. Because; Moore´s law doesn´t stop just because educators might find it hard to cope with the speed of the digital development.
Disruptive Education 