Virtual reality and augmented reality are making their way into the world of education, undoubtedly fueled by the pandemic, and a new horizon is already emerging: the METAVERSE. No barriers, identities tailored to one’s desires, and no geographical limits. The fact that such an unreal reality can revolutionize the world of education is already a certainty.
School in the Metaverse
The radical differences between the experience of online learning and that in the Metaverse are numerous. It is a form of learning that is:
- Engaging: direct participation in events;
- Active: knowledge and information are not passively received but actively acquired;
- Interactive: interaction is 360 degrees—socially, with the environment, and with others.
- Integrated: virtual and real worlds merge.
Who has invested the most in the Metaverse and education
Several major tech companies have embarked on the path to the Metaverse through their own efforts or by acquiring entities related to the worlds of VR and gaming. Just to name a few:
- Microsoft, for example, made moves by acquiring Blizzard-Activision.
- Roblox, a massive multiplayer online game (MMOG) in virtual reality with 50 million active users, has allocated an initial fund of $10 million to create a virtual educational ecosystem within the Metaverse.
- Minecraft Education, based on crafting and farming, allows students to create digital landscapes, settings, constructions, molecular structures, or simple geometric shapes within cooperative environments.
And in Italy?
We are a bit behind our overseas counterparts, but there are LMS platforms for online courses like BRAVO!, which allows combining the opportunities of asynchronous learning and gamification methodologies with the inclusion of quizzes and tests. To discover all the details, write to us at [email protected] or contact us through the appropriate form.
There are also experiments, such as the one at St. Louis School in Milan, which initiated a pilot project promoted by Inspired Educational Group.
Not all that glitters is gold. Training in the Metaverse also presents challenges.
We talk about the potential of education in the Metaverse, but we must also look at reality and the barriers that arise, much like stairs for those who cannot walk on their own legs. These barriers, whether economic, social, or personal, risk increasing the gap in a learning system that aims for increasingly advanced and expensive technologies (at least for the moment).
In Italy, 10% of students had to suspend their studies due to a lack of a device to access online learning. If, thanks to augmented reality, education in the metaverse becomes immersive and engaging, one cannot stop wondering how to bridge the gap that sometimes makes education a privilege and not a universally recognized right