There’s a quiet but fundamental revolution happening in how we learn, how we teach, and ultimately, how we understand the world. For centuries, our entire educational framework has been anchored in text. We read, we write, we analyze paragraphs to prove understanding. But the world our learners are now stepping into doesn’t work that way anymore. It doesn’t think in paragraphs.

It thinks in systems. It is visual, interactive, and increasingly, happening in real-time. It’s time we acknowledge that literacy is expanding. We are no longer living in a transition from analog to digital; that fight is won. We are now navigating the transition from linear thinking to spatial and systems thinking. This is why visualization isn’t just a powerful tool anymore. It is a core form of literacy.

This session explores how Artificial Intelligence and real time tools such as Unreal Engine and UEFN can transform visual storytelling in education. Through practical examples including AI assisted cinematic production, interactive world building in Fortnite using UEFN, and virtual production in Unreal Engine 5, participants will see how digital narrative design strengthens representation, cultural identity, and student voice. The session also demonstrates how immersive technologies can make subjects like science more engaging, interactive, and meaningful for learners.

Virtual production, AI, and real-time tools don’t belong to one subject. They sit at the crossroads of filmmaking, game design, computer science, and storytelling. But most curricula still keep those disciplines apart.

In this session, Dr Jodi Nelson-Tabor unpacks why the skills gap in screen industries isn’t a curriculum problem. It’s a convergence problem. Drawing on real-world experience building talent pipelines for film and TV, Jodi offers educators a practical framework for redesigning how disciplines connect.

In this session we explore the transformative potential of MetaHumans not just as digital characters, but as interactive ‘Educational Assistants.’ This session moves beyond software tutorials to discuss a future where MetaHumans serve as tireless mentors, cultural representatives, and adaptive guides. Attendees will learn how these real-time tools can reduce ‘neural latency’ in students, creating a safe, inclusive, and deeply engaging environment that turns the classroom from a place of passive observation into a hub of immersive innovation.

Modern learners are surrounded by constant prompts, short-form media, and tools that encourage quick answers before deep understanding has time to form. This discussion frames attention as the first teaching challenge, then shows how small animated and interactive experiences can slow thinking down in a useful way by making cause, sequence, and relationships visible. For educators, the value is practical: visualisations can help students hold onto an idea long enough to explore it, rather than losing it in abstraction.  

Grab a cup of coffee, tea, sandwich, cookie, or a glass of wine and refresh. Great opportunity to connect with others too.

This session explores the concepts behind real-time audience personalisation through AI-driven AR overlays, highlighting the potential of adaptive visualisation to transform engagement in performance environments. Drawing from Dimitri Josephine’s extensive experience in virtual production and real-time technologies, the session discusses how these techniques could enable immersive, interactive experiences where audiences influence content in real time. While the research is in its early stages, the talk also considers implications for education, illustrating how real-time, adaptive systems could inform the design of future learning environments and interactive experiences.

This session explores the practical manifestation of the Vivience Framework through high-fidelity MetaHumans and real-time visualization in Unreal Engine. By reframing AI from a passive utility to a relationally attuned partner, we investigate how digital environments can provide the emotional guardianship (Kaitiakitanga) necessary to sustain deep, transformative inquiry. Understanding the critical “Neutrality Trap” in Generative AI, the phenomenon where transactional indifference inadvertently stifles the psychological safety required for creative risk-taking. Drawing on foundational research into Affective-Emotive Resonance (AER), we examine how “Affective Load”, the cognitive drain caused by anxiety and perceived judgment, acts as a form of neural latency that directly impedes innovation.

Open Floor discussion open for all participants.

Prof. Jeasy Sehgal will deliver the closing thoughts for the symposium.