METAVERSEHow The Metaverse Will Transform How We Learn & Teach?

How The Metaverse Will Transform How We Learn & Teach?

Imagine walking on the moon’s surface, seeing polar bears in the arctic, and experiencing a world with history, science, the arts, and nature all at once. It seems impossible, right? But, the Metaverse’s immersive learning makes it all possible.

In the Metaverse, we imagine students building skills and exploring shared virtual spaces without the boundaries of the physical world. 

While new technologies promise to transform education, history is our greatest teacher. We’ve seen how technology is often poorly implemented and underused, so how can the Metaverse be different and fulfill its potential?

This article explores the third evolution of the internet – The Metaverse, which is more immersive than ever! 

Using technology as augmented, extended, and virtual reality to help students immerse themselves into the learning so it feels more like you’re a part of it more than just looking at it from a distance. 

Metaverse is Miles Ahead of Traditional Education

In the future, augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and artificial intelligence will be combined to create an immersive imaginary world that will have enormous implications for the development of educational technology.

Digital Art in Metaverse

The statistics are already in: Better technology improves students’ engagement and connection with the material.

For lectures and reading, the National Training Library found that learning retention is only 5%, but for VR training, it is a whopping 75%. That bodes well for the metaverse’s potential in education.

The metaverse is transforming education and training settings in a number of ways. Let’s take a look at some examples.

Cloud-Based Classrooms

As a result of the pandemic, virtual classroom platforms like Virbela and Mozilla Hubs grew in popularity and became necessary as a place for students to gather online during lockdowns.

Cloud Storage

It will be possible for students to log in from anywhere and for teachers to customize their online classrooms based on the lesson plans they have planned. 

For instance, Roblox now provides Robolox classrooms with millions of user-generated worlds within which students can experience virtual learning.

Digital Picture Frames

AR Reef is a mobile-based AR application that teaches learners about how their actions on land impact ocean health. 

Learners can “place” a digital picture frame on a vertical surface, from which a reef and its inhabitants emerge.

This visualizes an underwater environment that is difficult to visit in real life, and animates coral biology and the impact of ocean stressors. 

Learners can move around the digital reef and view it up close from different angles. This interactive visualization was designed to support learning about the complexity of the ocean ecosystem, but data on learning outcomes has not yet been collected. 

Further, accessibility is limited based on the need to download an application onto the learner’s device.

The DICE acronym

A rule of thumb is to use VR for experiences that otherwise would be Dangerous, Impossible, Counterproductive, or Expensive (also known as the DICE acronym). 

  • Dangerous: Train how to put out a fire instead of risking injuries with real fires. 
  • Impossible: Walk on Mars even though this is probably impossible during your lifetime. 
  • Counterproductive: Cut trees in a virtual forest to learn about deforestation, something that in real life would go against what you are trying to achieve. 
  • Expensive: Become a diver in the remote location you have always dreamt to visit (but are still saving money for).

Extended Reality (XR) in Education

XR, which stands for “extended reality,” or “cross reality,” is a catch-all term for immersive technologies used to access the Metaverse: augmented, mixed, and virtual reality.

XR also represents a spectrum where each of these technologies is situated between a completely computer-generated virtual environment (high virtuality) on one end and physical reality on the other (no virtuality).

In a physical environment, the reality is any sensory experience we can naturally have. A user is placed along the XR continuum based on the degree of virtuality, or the ratio of virtual versus physical content, when such environments are experienced in real-time using audiovisual hardware like smartphones or headsets.

When designed well, technologies like XR can support effective learning that is difficult to achieve otherwise.

Some features of XR that are especially important when applied to educational contexts are: 

Immersion: XR hardware can create depth and space illusions through stereoscopic imagery and spatial audio. Users can place 3D content (e.g., objects) in their environment from a first-person perspective, and feel as though they are sharing the space with the content itself. 

Interactivity: XR allows people to actively engage with digital environments by enabling responses to users’ movements and actions, making it an interactive medium that can invoke their full bodies and encourage creation and expression. 

Invisibility: Because it uses realistic 3D imagery and blends the digital with the physical, XR can visualize phenomena that are invisible to the human eye such as changes over time or microscopic particles.

So this is where the metaverse will transform education. 

Augmented Reality (AR) in Education

Another intriguing technology is augmented reality, which enables us to project objects in front of us using tablets and smartphones.

To help students connect and interact more deeply with the information they are learning, we can use AR technology in the metaverse to create digital overlays on top of actual classroom artifacts.

AR

For example, I’ve dissected frogs in my school, and trust me, it’s not a pleasant experience. But, to provide the same learning without sacrificing the life of frogs, an innovative AR tool called Froggipedia is actively being used in classrooms today. 

Shooting two birds with one stone, that is, students are able to gain hands-on AR experience by studying the internal organs of frogs without actually having to do dissection.

With the Big Bang AR app, CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research) is helping kids study the origins of our universe and physics in a fun and engaging way.

Virtual Reality (VR) in Education

The potential applications of VR in education in the metaverse are vast because, in theory, any ability that humans “learn by doing” might be enhanced with immersive instruction.

With the potential of VR headsets, we can also make the entire learning experience more immersive. Imagine teaching history using text and visuals vs donning VR headsets and seeing the world of ancient Rome. 

VR Headsets

You can fly to the moon, explore space, observe the planet from above, and journey back in time by putting on the Meta Quest 2.

  • Several businesses, including Mondly, have already begun incorporating immersive VR experiences into their training programs. It’s feasible to “learn by doing” in a way that’s not possible with flashcards or rote memorizing with Mondly’s VR software because it gives you the impression that you’re in settings where you’ll need to speak another language.
  • It will be as spectacular to take students on metaverse field trips. For students and educators, the possibilities are endless because wearing VR headsets will allow them to travel anywhere on the globe (and even through time and space).
  • I also think school trips will be transformed as there’s still a big issue of finance that not every school and children can afford to take a historical trip or the best galleries in the world. 
  • Whereas in the virtual world, Students can examine top-notch artwork from their homes or classrooms using the VR Museum of Fine Art on Steam without being constrained by distance, crowds, or glass walls. 
  • The virtual reality (XR) experts at Ximmerse have also developed XR technology that enables instructors to transform their classrooms into immersive museum exhibits like Jurassic jungles and underwater seascapes.

Transformation of Teaching:

Tech as a Tool, Not a Silver Bullet. Teachers are often unfairly blamed for the poor implementation of tech in the classroom. Technology is not the silver bullet to fixing struggling systems of education.

Technology is merely one of the tools available in the educator’s toolbox. Moreover, a tool is only as good as its ability to serve a specific goal. 

Let’s make sure that XR is seen for what it is; not a goal in itself, but a means to a carefully thought out end.

In education, the goal concerns what needs to be learned. Once learning goals are clearly defined, then it is time to judiciously think about which strategy educators can use to achieve their objectives. 

  • To give an example, let’s say your learning goal is to inquire about the tidal zone ecosystem with your students. If you happen to live inland, XR might indeed be a useful tool that would allow your students to feel virtually immersed in this remote environment. 
  • On the other hand, if you happen to live close to the shore, benefit from safe access to a local beach, and can take students on a field trip, using XR would keep students away from an outdoor experience with nature, unnecessarily substituting it with a virtual proxy. In other words, if you can get your feet wet, do so; if you cannot, XR can be a valuable solution.
  • The use of holograms in education is endless; you can imagine your teacher anywhere in the world, and then project this hologram into any classroom, anywhere in the world to any live audience. You can be in London, and your hologram can be projected to Sydney and Singapore to a live audience.
  • The best teachers of every topic can be brought to life in classrooms or even in people’s life so there’s a huge level of opportunity for how the metaverse can truly transform education. 

Conclusion

This introductory guide is designed to serve as an onramp to learning in the Metaverse. We hope you feel confident to discuss and imagine the possibilities of Metaverse in education. 

While VR can transport you somewhere you couldn’t go otherwise by taking you away from reality, AR and MR add to the user’s surroundings. 

With AR, you can clean a virtual penguin covered in oil in your sink, or you can get help identifying the plants you encounter during an outdoor hike. 

We know that XR and the Metaverse will not fix systemic problems in education, and might even create new problems. However, understanding the strengths and weaknesses of XR will allow for thoughtful reflection on how we use these tools for specific learning goals and contexts.

As new technologies emerge—impacting how people live, work, and learn—we are motivated to give every learner the opportunity to thrive in an increasingly complex world. 

To ensure that learning experiences are impactful regardless of the tool or platform used, we need to understand the promise of these technologies and how they can fulfill their potential, instead of becoming another oversold and underused learning tool. 

Nikita Verma
Nikita Verma
In 2019, Nikita first got introduced to Metaverse and NFTs. Being born a non-conformist, she was intrigued by the idea of learning about virtual worlds that did not conform to traditional standards of Web 2.0. Needless to say, since then, she completely immersed herself in the world of the metaverse. Metaverse is her passion. The desire to learn more about Metaverse has spurred her to read 50+ books, take over a dozen courses, and devour whitepapers. To stay up to date with the latest trends, she's also an active member of many discords and Twitter groups.

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