Reimagining the future of education with the metaverse

Ever-evolving technologies have been driving transformation in all walks of life. Although the first eLearning course was launched in the 1990s, the pandemic has accelerated the adoption of eLearning methodologies.

With a silver lining, the pandemic helped the education sector become more open to adopting future technologies.

Education is successfully delivered only if it can engage learners. Better engagement leads to better retention of learned information. It is a proven fact that technology plays a vital role in connecting and engaging learners better with the learning material.

Metaverse in the education sector enables learners to attend virtual classes remotely while experiencing elements of the real classroom. Education institutions and technology companies are working towards removing physical barriers while making them more immersive, engaging, and communicative.

The advantages of a metaverse in Education

Technology has been at the rescue in continuing education. The transformation, from virtual cloud-based classrooms and webinars to self-paced learning environments to microlearning, and now with the help of AR and VR providing immersive learning experiences, has happened quickly. Let us focus on the metaverse and education and understand the key advantages of the metaverse in the education sector.

Flexible learning concepts with an interactive curriculum

Understanding a concept is much simpler if explained in an interactive manner in a virtual environment. For instance, understanding a basic concept of the solar ecosystem will be much simpler if one can virtually walk through the galaxy and experience the placements and orbits of the planets. 

Another example is – it is easier to understand the process of launching a rocket by virtually experiencing it from the space launch station. Understanding step-by-step launch into orbit can be represented visually by virtually being present there with the help of virtual 3D classroom setup. Every minute detail can be experienced along with the pre-launch preps, final assembling, technical aspects, and much more.

The professions that require practice to master the skill, such as medical surgeries and astrophysics experiments, can be easily conducted when education meets the metaverse.

Making learning fun with gamification

A competitive spirit keeps individuals on their toes. Metaverse for education can enhance focused learning. Awarding the learners with badges and other forms of recognition keeps the learners motivated, encouraging them to stay focused to complete the assigned tasks.

For instance, students can explore different geographical areas in the metaverse to understand the features and environment of the locations. The learners can then create the avatars based on the culture of the location they like and later create the area as per their liking.

Making teaching more interactive

Well, learning becomes interesting with good teaching skills. With multitudes of opportunities to experiment, it opens new avenues for the teaching fraternity. Any technology that can accelerate learning outcomes is a focus of teaching professionals. 

Social interaction in realistic situations helps enhance collaborative work environments and improve problem-solving skills. Creating avatars can easily explain the concept using a roleplaying technique to get into real-life scenarios. Creating different scenarios for realistic situations can become possible with the metaverse.

Also Read: How Much Does It Cost to Build a Custom Child Care and Day Care App like Brightwheel?

Discovering information easily and quickly

Knowledge can be easily made available to a wider audience with internet-enabled techniques. Courses, once created, can be used by multiple learners saving time and money. Personalized search results and better socially collaborative tools will provide individualized learning paths in a manner that is easily understandable. 

Applications of metaverse in edtech

The applications of the metaverse in education are immense. The transformation of the education sector from eLearning to metaverse is all set to take an inclined leap benefiting the below-mentioned applications.

Virtual classrooms

eLearning facilitates education anytime and anywhere. However, the benefits of physical classrooms cannot be replaced or replicated in the remote education environment. Only a virtual 3D classroom, metaverse, can fill this gap between physical and virtual classrooms. The students get the option of creating their own virtual avatars and can attend classes with other students in the virtual 3D environment. Metaverse also opens up multiple avenues for experiential learning.

Virtual campus activities

Similar to attending classes with other students within the virtual environment, the students can also participate in various events and activities like competitions, sports, educational clubs, and much more. It provides the feeling of physically being present on campus and practically participating in events.

Practical learning

With metaverse, understanding the concepts of different disciplines can be understood in a better way by combining or exchanging the concepts. For example, mathematics formulas can be used to complement physics concepts better, providing holistic learning.

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Events with prominent figures

Inviting prominent figures like scientists, doctors, and sportspersons and making the students interact and learn from their experiences and knowledge can prove to be highly beneficial. Environments for virtual conferences, symposiums, and lectures can be organized in the metaverse.

[Also Read: Metaverse: The New Web is Here, Where are You?]

Features of a metaverse in education

We have been stating that metaverse is a third world that offers experiences of the real world. However, there will always be some differences when compared to conventional classroom settings and remote learning. Let’s understand these differences.

Time and location of the learner

Conventional learning requires both teacher and learner to be present at the same time, at the same location. Remote learning or screen-based learning provides the flexibility of learning from anywhere. However, time flexibility cannot be provided to learners and teachers.

Metaverse, on the other hand, provides complete flexibility of learning from anywhere, anytime, with a smart wearable device and high internet connectivity. This allows teachers to innovate new teaching methods in both synchronous and asynchronous learning environments.

[Bonus Read: How to Design Your LMS Features to Support Distance Learning?]

Learner identity

Conventional and screen-based classrooms can only be attended to the real identities of the learner. At the same time, metaverse allows you to create your identities in the form of avatars in a joyful, creative, and immersive manner, irrespective of creed and color.

Interaction of learners

In the conventional classroom environment, the learners interact with teachers and peers in person. This becomes difficult in screen-based learning due to its limitation leading to indifferences, social challenges, and more.

Metaverse overcomes the challenges of both the above-mentioned educational methods. The learners’ avatars can interact with teachers and peer avatars, getting and providing real-time feedback, socialization, expert help in concept learning, personalized support, and much more.

Learning scenarios

The conventional learning setup helps create an environment with limitations for practical learning, like labs, roleplays, etc. Screen-based learning is dull and boring as it primarily supports theoretical learning methods.

Metaverse in training, on the other hand, can create realistic scenarios, allowing the learners to participate in real situations and learn in a practical yet safe environment.

Learning resources and activities

Conventional and screen-based learning generally exist in static environments in the form of textbooks, pictures, videos, and other similar learning materials. 

Metaverse enables learners with real learning scenarios providing them required resources to create and learn through participation in activities.

Learning assessment

In conventional and screen-based learning, assessments can be done mostly in a summative manner in the form of tests and scores. Providing impactful real-time feedback becomes a challenge in these methods.

Metaverse in the education sector helps both in formative and summative assessments with the help of learning analysis, where comprehensive assessment along with immediate feedback helps in better learner growth.

Bonus Read- Metaverse-as-a-Service platform – Unlocking new avenues for business

Create a metaverse for your students with Appinventiv

The impact of a metaverse in education is relatable based on the features and benefits mentioned above. It is inevitable to stay ahead and relevant in the world of education without a metaverse. This can only be achieved with the help of an innovative and expert team of metaverse development company like Appinventiv.

We specialize in creating decentralized platforms to provide enhanced interoperability. With our expertise in blockchain technology, we have provided innovative solutions to different industries like banking, education, and more. With a robust tech stack of the latest technologies, we can deliver the metaverse for your educational institution that will be impactful.

The testimony of the project with Nova is proof of concept innovation. We helped the LMS platform to overcome the fraudulent course certification challenge by implementing blockchain abilities. The phase one of the project included the development of LMS with smart contract development and audit along with POC creation. The next phase of the project included the integration of cryptocurrencies for fee payment, a gamification index for engaging course content and the inclusion of features to use crypto rewards for motivation, and much more.

In case you are also looking for something similar, get in touch with our innovative team of techies and convert your edtech metaverse idea into a reality.

THE AUTHOR

Sudeep Srivastava

Co-Founder and Director