Over the past few decades, there have been many big changes in the education field. Educators have changed the way they teach to keep up with how quickly technology is changing. They used to just talk to students and draw on the blackboard, but now they use digital smart classes. Today’s teaching methods focus only on helping students learn. And they try to create an environment that is interesting and immersive so that students can learn concepts better. The metaverse is one of these things that educators all over the world are interested in.
Its goal is to give students an immersive experience where they can do fun things that make learning more fun. No longer do students imagine what would happen in a textbook based on what their teachers told them. We live in a digitally connected world now, where ideas like “metaverse” are put to use in the real world. In this kind of situation, it’s easy to see how this network of virtual worlds, called the metaverse, can change the way the world’s education system works. In this insight, we’ll go into detail about how the education system uses the power of the metaverse.
Let’s discuss what exactly is the metaverse?
The metaverse is a three-dimensional virtual world. It combines online gaming, social media. And also virtual reality (VR), and augmented reality (AR) to make a place where people can interact virtually. It is a persistent, always-on, real-time ecosystem that gets around the limits of geography to provide users with useful services.
This huge virtual universe can give you services that you can’t get anywhere else. It gives people a place to play games, hang out with friends, have fun, learn, work, and take advantage of different business opportunities.
How Metaverse can be used in education?
In the education sector, the benefits of the metaverse are:
Virtual 3D classrooms
Students from anywhere in the world can join this learning system, which is powered by the metaverse, and do much more than they could in a physical classroom.
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Digital learning
The metaverse wants to make these classrooms a little smarter by letting students fully immerse themselves in these videos. This will help them understand the material better. It also gives them a place to try things out, make mistakes, and learn from them in subjects that require practical experiments. Even in-person classes can use 3D virtual learning to help students learn what they need to.
Virtual campus activities
Students can do things like sports and arts outside of school in a virtual setting thanks to the metaverse. Students can do fun things like join a music or math club, which are similar to physical activities on campus. They can also walk all over their virtual campus without leaving home.
Learning in different fields
The metaverse could break down barriers between subjects and help people learn from different fields. It lets teachers combine subjects that are usually taught separately, like math and science, to make learning more interesting and to show how different theories are used in real life.
Creating situations that are like real life
Learning in the metaverse is helpful, mostly because this virtual space can simulate real-life situations where students can do science experiments, show off prototypes, and even step into a video documentary, say about World War I. In the future, there may be subject-specific 3D spaces made to help students learn and help teachers explain what they are learning.
Bringing attention
With this kind of teaching method, students will not only learn the facts, but they will also have a deep emotional understanding of what is going on around them.
Virtual tours
Imagine learning about a country or other place in class and then going there right away. Wouldn’t it be a great thing to do? Even though this is not possible in the real world, the metaverse makes it possible by letting people take virtual tours of the whole world. The metaverse helps students learn more about the world by letting them travel to any place they want in a virtual setting in just a few minutes.
People and things
In the virtual world of the metaverse, teachers can invite famous people or people with a lot of wisdom and knowledge to help students learn about their different life experiences. They can go to symposiums, conferences, and lectures that are interesting. To help them clear their minds, different events like fairs and exhibitions can be held.
What the metaverse can do for education?
An experience that brings learning to life
Students can learn through metaverse by imagining themselves in a 3D world where they can see and talk to their classmates and the 3D objects around them, just like they would in a real classroom. Metaverse learning can virtually take students to different times in history, from the Stone Age to the present day, so they don’t have to use their imaginations. Wouldn’t it be cool to learn about Columbus’s travels by sailing on his ship and finding America in the 1500s?
Gamification
Students can be taught in a static way or in a way that is both passive and active, but the latter is the best way to teach because it helps them understand concepts better. Metaverse does the same thing for students by using gamification, which is the process of adding game elements to something to get people to use it.
Practice by doing
The metaverse is changing the way people usually learn by giving students the chance to do things that would be dangerous or hard to do in the real world. It helps students understand theories better and improve their skills so that they are ready for real-world tasks. Within a metaverse, students can do dangerous surgeries or dangerous experiments with explosives without putting anyone’s life at risk.
Life-like learning
Metaverse classrooms offer lifelike ecosystems that encourage students to interact with their surroundings and each other. This is in contrast to the traditional education system, which doesn’t do much to encourage active communication and engagement among students. In a metaverse, teachers can take students to different life-like situations where they can do activities and then talk about what they did and what they learned.
Getting to know things faster
A study done by PwC found that employees learned four times faster in VR-enabled courses than in a classroom setting. Immersive experiences like gamification, hands-on practises, 3D elements, and fun activities can help learners stay ahead of the game. Also, metaverse learners feel less distracted because 3D simulations that fully engage a person’s vision and attention help them understand what they are learning better.
How the metaverse will change education in the future
Since Facebook changed its name to Meta, the word “metaverse” has been able to get a lot of attention. It has gotten big brands and businesses interested, and they have already started investing in a number of metaverse projects. Even though the idea of metaverse is also making its way into the academic world. Its full potential in education has not yet been discovered. Meta is putting $150 million into Meta Immersive Learning to give more students access to learning through technology. Several metaverse development company and well-known schools are also looking into what the metaverse can do for education. This is a good sign for the future.
