By Sachin Gupta, Chancellor, Sanskriti University
It comes as no surprise that the Covid-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on education. Students from almost every corner of the world have experienced disruptions. As a result of this disruption, online education has quickly evolved into a new normal. In theory, this should result in more inclusive and innovative instructional solutions.
New opportunities are opening up for a new era of creativity. Experiential virtual learning platforms are playing a critical role in letting students to participate in highly dynamic and engaging live classroom sessions during the continuing epidemic, with Metaverse as the future.
As technology progresses, bringing us new immersive and imagined worlds, so must our methods of educating children and preparing teachers to handle these new challenges. When education lags behind technological advancements, technology, not educators, determines what qualifies as an educational opportunity. It also provides new opportunities for students, instructors, and parents to communicate. Students and teachers have more flexibility in timing the curriculum, conducting meetings, and supplementing practical learning experiences because of virtual universe technologies and blended learning approaches.
The Metaverse’s Concept
The metaverse is a virtual 3D extension of the internet as we know it in real life. It gives its users a lot of flexibility in terms of real-time interaction while also allowing them to create any online environment they choose. Future metaverses are anticipated to fully endorse augmented and virtual worlds, artificial intelligence, and the connection needed to connect all worlds. In its most democratic version, anyone will be able to construct a space and become a member of a subscriber world community on an interoperability multiplatform, where they may share their products or commodities with the rest of the world.
The virtual based learning during the pandemic has a huge advantage in delivering both theoretical and practical knowledge. It can make abstract problems concrete. Virtual reality and augmented reality learning experiences have the potential to outperform passive, tell-and-test, simply press learning methods, which we know lack involvement and productivity. Extended Reality (XR) learning specialists develop dynamic, highly interactive, and often emotionally realistic content that reaches consumers in a more substantial manner.
The prospect of adopting metaverse for education has emerged as a result of the metaverse’s gradually evolving applications in numerous areas, including gaming. However, before investigating the possibilities, it is necessary to comprehend the metaverse’s ideas, which can be used to drive educational applications.
Metaverse Learning
According to the experts, if the metaverse can adhere to the best learning principles, it has the potential to change how lessons are taught and how children learn. Learning in the metaverse has the potential to bring learners from all over the world together and allow them to engage in significant ways while also allowing for unparalleled accessibility. By allowing us to replicate everything from a discussion to a treatment, learning becomes more engaging and meaningful.
Virtual Reality (VR) based education has the potential to break down boundaries between studies by demonstrating how diverse ideas can be applied to real-world circumstances. Additionally, in the future, practical tasks like wiring a plug, installing a drain, and even advanced healthcare skills like surgical procedure could be taught using VR, allowing students to consolidate their learning without fear of real-world consequences.
Instead of speaking with other individuals through a laptop screen and microphones, you can use virtual workplaces or classrooms. Users will be able to interact with lifelike virtual characters created by other metaverse players while accessing virtual workshops or educational experiences in panoramic view.
Benefits of Metaverse in Education
Students can use a virtual reality headset to explore activities and surroundings that they wouldn’t be able to undertake in everyday world, such as space exploration or city building. People from all over the world may be able to engage in classroom discussions using this virtual environment. Because of the creative experience in the classroom, students will be more likely to remember lessons learned from their teachers.
Virtual campus visits will be common, helping colleges to break down the global divide that divides students and educators from all over the world. Parents and students will no longer need to travel large distances to visit the school, depending on Metaverse’s virtual world. Despite the fact that students are obliged to live on campus, they will most likely be involved in other activities and desire to attend lessons wherever they choose.
A metaverse environment, on the other hand, can be built to appear fairly realistic. Professors would be able to generate an ambiance that is quite amazing and likely to interest students of all ages, depending on the metaverse they choose.
The Metaverse has the potential to bring about new breakthroughs in learner participation. There is no doubt that Metaverse will change the education sector.
