By: Padma Ravi, Specialist – CX Advisory, LTIMindtree

The term “Metaverse” started appearing in the internet lingua franca in the last few months. It has gained prominence since a few leading organizations from the FANG group—primarily after Meta called it out as a part of their future strategy. The Greek prefix for “meta” means beyond, and “verse” means universe. Past attempts like the second life, a technology developed by Linden Lab that allowed people to create an avatar for themselves and have a second life in a virtual world, have led people to label Metaverse as a “mirror world,” “spatial internet,” and “AR cloud.” We see a lot of progress in Metaverse being adapted to several aspects of our life—work, entertainment, travel, and education.

What is Metaverse?

Metaverse is a network of 3D virtual worlds where you can create a digital version of yourself and can reside in the form of an avatar. Your day-to-day activities like going to a place, shopping, attending events, etc., everything you do in the physical world can be mirrored in Metaverse. Avatars can also interact with each other similar to our interactions with people around us in the physical world.

Why do we need Metaverse in education?

The Covid-19 pandemic had a significant impact on all industries. Everyone has started to engage virtually, including educational institutions. This might greatly impact the students’ performance and motivation to study as online learning lacks collaboration and hands-on experiences. One of the major advantages of Metaverse is the experience it provides; it enables students to get fully immersed in a digital classroom environment. The students interact with the instructor and learn content in an interactive environment. All day-to-day activities like classes, workshops, projects, experiments, and seminars happen in real-time, enabling effective student participation.

VR-based education has a huge advantage in delivering theoretical and practical knowledge. It can make abstract problems concrete. It helps sharpen students’ operational skills, provides an immersive learning experience, and improves students’ involvement in class, making learning more fun and active.

How can we use Metaverse?

A study conducted by UNICEF revealed that the pandemic had disrupted the education of 91% of students worldwide. Students and teachers worldwide had to adapt to remote learning. Technology has been a crucial factor in continuing education. With the advent of Metaverse, technology can be used to the fullest to deliver real-time experiences to students.

Advantages of using Metaverse in education

Metaverse can transform the education sector and offer numerous benefits to students. To know the top three key advantages, read on.

1. Interactive curriculum and practical application of concepts
   Metaverse can bring an up-to-date curriculum with interactive experience embedded in the real-time world. For example, it would be practically impossible for students to witness a rocket launch or track a satellite movement in space. Through Metaverse, students can get the complete experience of what happens in a launch room, the minutes prior to the launch, the rocket’s phase-by-phase separation, and finally, the orbit. The experience also has information about every stage of a rocket launch.Tech in education has helped several students learn better. Metaverse is the next step in that evolution. It will help students learn concepts virtually in real-life situations and provides access to more students. Important and practical tasks such as performing advanced medical surgeries and conducting astrophysics experiments can be taught using Metaverse/VR.
2. Gamification
   Metaverse can make learning fun. Learning gets more engaging when students have an objective or target to reach. Focused learning by introducing elements of gamification like badges and quests will motivate students to complete tasks, stay focused, and finish work.E.g., exploring flora and fauna in a virtual rainforest would improve students’ involvement. After discovering flora and fauna in the rainforest, students can collect avatars of the found species and create their own forests. This way, they can learn about the plants in detail.
3. Improved test results
   Though Metaverse enables students to develop greater knowledge and master their subjects by engaging in interactive experiences, the true efficiency of this technology can only be judged based on its outcome. It can be convincing and easily acceptable to teachers, parents, or other members of the teaching fraternity only if they enable students to get good grades. To test this, a study was conducted to see how immersive virtual reality learning helped boost test scores. The results showed that students who experienced the VR program scored higher when compared to the control groups. The study concluded that immersive virtual reality learning is a viable alternative to educational storytelling.

Conclusion

Although Metaverse has a great deal of benefits, not everyone would be able to adapt to the concept of Metaverse in education as they lack human interactions, and it can be addictive and isolating.

Metaverse is the next step in the evolution of EdTech—from the use of teaching aids to using AR for a more engaging experience.

I am sure Metaverse will bring a revolution in the field of education. A few schools have already started to have immersive education using Metaverse. As we advance, at least one of their classes will be in Metaverse, it will become inevitable.

References

1. Virtual program prepares Kindy kids for big school | The Educator K/12 (theeducatoronline.com)
2. How To Use Metaverse In Education (metaversio.io)
3. How will the Metaverse transform teaching? | Sifted