Exploring The Potential of Extended Reality in Education And Learning

As promising new developments in the education sector have paved the way for creativity, innovation, and affordability, the focus and interest in extended reality or XR technology have been piqued in recent years. 

What used to be primarily implemented in video games back in the 90s and beyond, virtual reality is now being used for many purposes, including learning and training. In essence, augmented and virtual reality are furnishing incredible experiences to the learning environment.

How will the classroom of the future look and feel like? How will inventive and immersive technologies support our understanding and acquisition of new skills and strengthen our interactions with each other? As the spheres of education and learning move rapidly toward hybrid interactive models, we are optimistic that XR can play a crucial role in enhancing the education sector. Let’s explore its potential in this article.

What is Extended Reality (XR)?

Before we dive deeper into the finer details of how extended reality can be advantageous for education, we will first briefly overview how it works.

XR or extended reality is an umbrella term to represent alternate reality experiences including augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR). For instance, let us assume that you are looking to purchase a new set of furniture for your classroom. Here is how each type of XR would function:

• Augmented reality: You use your phone’s camera to see how the furniture would fit in the classroom. Unlike VR, where the complete experience is virtual, augmented reality offers you a full digital view on your phone or other devices.
   
• Virtual reality: You put on a VR headset and step into the virtual experience that recreates your classroom. You will be able to see exactly how each piece of furniture set would look in the room in a closed-in, 100% virtual environment.

There are a plethora of opportunities for both types of extended reality. In fact, the US military is gearing to spend a whopping 11 billion dollars in XR technologies by 2023- the majority of which will be offered in training and education. Nonetheless, AR/VR application development solutions have been fueling the education sector with endless scope and opportunities all around the world.

Features of XR in education and learning

As we look forward to the coming years, here are the top five attributes of XR in the landscape of education and learning.

• Collaboration across higher education institutions, colleges, and industry partners in snowballing experimentation and laying the groundwork for a sustainable ecosystem for extended reality applications in learning.
• As it is an emerging privacy framework, immersive technology standards, and ethical learning guidelines can ensure a more durable future.
• The impact of XR technology in education and training has been such that it is already transforming fields such as healthcare learning and care delivery.
• With XR, innovations stressing the democratization of content creation are having a significant impact on participation, capacity, and adoption. 
• XR is reshaping the soft skills training in sectors critical to the future of work and in a manner that complements the swift adoption of hybrid and online learning.

Also Read: Crucial Tips To Prepare and Guide Employees For VR Training

Educational Benefits of XR

In the education setting, extended reality enables students to learn in ways they’ve never been able to do before. For instance, it could be teaching kindergartens about the solar system or showing human anatomy to high school students, all the way up to training medical aspirants to perform life-saving surgical operations. 

The potential to replicate real-life situations provides XR with the benefit of surpassing any possible limit. Clearly, you can not send a class of second-grade students on a field trip to the moon, at least in the real world. However, with a basic VR simulation, they can start exploring the moon’s surface within a matter of a few seconds. 

Through full 360 degrees headsets or AR tablet applications, students can enhance their knowledge of what life is like throughout the world. With an app such as YouVisits, they can take a tour to the world’s famous museums or travel deep into the past to see how the biggest marvels of human civilization were created. 

In effect, XR can instill empathy in students, as they can gain an understanding of real-world problems that would be hard to conceptualize otherwise. With XR, students can build perceptions beyond the unimaginative statistics and facts that are typically just presented to them in monotonous ways.

Summing up

Extended reality offers endless opportunities to educational institutions and academic trainers. While some colleges have already adopted this technology to help students in preparing their assignments and projects, the future of XR is surely bright. What are your thoughts on the future of XR in the education and learning sector? Let us know in the comments below.

If you’re looking for AR/VR application development, discuss your requirements with our team of experts.