New Digital Spaces, From Artificial Intelligence to the Metaverse: Experimenting in the classroom to understand, learn and apply

Abstract

This article describes the framework of a bachelor-level marketing course aimed at working on innovation and developing a product or service through an international competition that rewards the most promising productions. Each year, the subjects change, and for this year's edition, the entries must be about the metaverse, virtual reality, augmented reality, artificial intelligence, gaming, and NFTs (non-fungible tokens). To ensure that students have the necessary knowledge and understanding of these topics to accomplish the required creative task, a comprehensive four-stage training program spread over fifteen class periods has been created, based on a three-part pedagogical design: student, context and employability. The aim is to ensure students understand the concepts before using them to develop a product or service. This article demonstrates the effective learning that has taken place and the importance of exposing students to emerging digital technologies.