Ya' Learn Something New Every Day - The Metaverse & Education

Albert Einstein once said that “once you stop learning, you start dying” - and we couldn’t agree more! Education is the key to human and societal growth and a sector where new avenues for improved experiences are always welcome. And while age-old quotes from history's most famous scientists remain timeless... Traditional teaching and learning methods? Not so much.

When reading a book to learn and digest content, we tend only to retain about 5% of that knowledge, whereas if we experience something in virtual reality, that retention increases to over 75%. So, at Exarta, we're finding ways to step inside our textbooks.

A new universe filled with exciting, experiential learning opportunities is on the horizon. But what does this new era of education look like?

Immersive, real-life situations

VR in the classroom will allow you to visit ancient Rome and learn how aqueducts work by constructing them yourself. Rather than create a volcanic eruption by mixing vinegar with baking soda, you’ll be immersed inside a rumbling volcano before being ejected into the sky atop the fiery lava pools. You'll be able to hyper-visualize the Theory of Relativity right before your eyes. You'll explore the intricate constellations of the Milky Way Galaxy sitting among the stars.

And no innocent frogs have to be harmed in the metaverse so that you can learn how to dissect them. Instead, you'll be able to virtually travel through the various organ systems of any creature.  

Virtual field trips can facilitate immersive storytelling that’ll encourage contextual learning as you visit places that are impossible to visit in real life. Stroll down the lavish halls of the VR-Louvre without taking a flight to Paris and create your own digital artwork based on century-old paintings. For the ultimate spark of creative inspiration, you could even transport back in time to 16th-century Italy and watch Leonardo da Vinci paint the Mona Lisa.

Crazy, right? That's the metaverse for you. With its technological capabilities, this new space is working to reduce friction and bring learning, capability building and skills development closer to us in ways beyond imagine.

Virtual 3D classrooms

The Covid-19 pandemic encouraged a shift from physical classrooms to more virtual spaces. As a result, students experienced a gap between immersive physical classrooms and virtual ones. And while studying from home satisfied our need for safety and convenience, we couldn’t help but feel isolated and detached.

That's where the metaverse comes in. It can bridge this gap by developing 3D virtual classrooms where students from any geographical location can virtually meet and interact with classmates and teachers.

This learning setup is cost-effective and flexible, while research by PWC has found that students are even learning at a quicker speed this way.

That's because immersive, collaborative learning is fun. It facilitates a co-existence: learning alongside friends, exploring together and building social networks. This connection is only possible on metaverse platforms where we can support many simultaneous users across vast experiences.

Enhanced awareness

As the future of our planet hangs in the balance and with the Cop27 climate summit taking place in Egypt, there’s a real chance for metaverse technologies to facilitate meaningful change.

Can you believe it? These ‘scary’, ‘unknown’ technologies can be used for practical and social good in classrooms. Children can visualize social and environmental issues such as famine, pollution or climate change and be injected with humanitarian interest and a determination to contribute to positive change.

How would you feel, for instance, immersing yourself into the dry atmosphere of Somalia’s 40-year drought, or the heart-wrenching poverty of Burundi: standing on the streets, hearing the sounds, meeting the people, feeling the rhythm of life for yourself? The sensual, immersive capabilities of AI and VR will evoke emotional responses in learners and make them feel motivated to act.

The Guardian recently reported that the University of Barcelona is to be the first to introduce a mandatory climate crisis module from 2024. With the natural assumption that education institutions worldwide will follow in their footsteps, metaverse technology can become one of the most prominent aids to progress learners’ understanding of climate change.

Technology that makes us better equipped for saving our planet? How can we be wary of that?

Educational games with inbuilt learning assessments

The metaverse supports rigorous, deep learning but also preserves the core gamification mechanics in other metaverse experiences that build motivation and engagement. Its offerings aren't strictly 'educational' or ‘entertainment’ - it combines the two. In the metaverse, 'Edu-tainment' has the potential to be far more than what critics have previously labelled as chocolate-covered broccoli. Games can engage learners by adapting difficulty based on need and proficiency, providing a step-laddered opportunity for repeated practice. Why? Because immersive, 3D games make learning fun!

Increased data capture on learning performance

In a recent TedTalk, Mike Howells discusses his observation that we're entering into a 'data driven revolution', where technology will soon be able to use data that helps us and our personal, educational journeys. 

Everyone learns differently, and there are multiple ways to see and understand how individuals get to a specific answer. Metaverse technology can help us create more versatile assessment forms that no longer blanket all students' educational needs nor stick square pegs into round holes.

With a focus on problem-solving instead of right and wrong answers, we can look at how they use all the information available during the assessment and monitor how they decide to operate. Can they use their acquired knowledge? Can they apply it to real-world situations? 

Exarta’s AI Learning machine engine can holistically observe breadcrumb trails of evidence from everything a student does to interact throughout their game experience. A dashboard of analytics is produced based on learner actions such as: usage, attention, performance, engagement, sentiment, and predictive analysis. From the data, we can gain insights that can help us continuously improve the simulated learning experience and find unique solutions for individuals depending on their learning needs, strengths and weaknesses.

This means that teachers can also play a more active role in collecting data, tracking progress, finding gaps, analyzing lessons and adapting their teaching style in line with the findings.

The metaverse's potential to offer learners a more abstract, open canvas to express themselves and flourish creatively in high-stake tests is changing the education system for the better.

Hands-on practice

The metaverse redefines traditional conventions of education by engaging students in hands-on practices, which can otherwise be challenging to do in a real-world setting. Virtual applications can allow students to better understand theories and refine their skills to prepare them for real-life endeavors. Take Walmart's Spark City, for example. It offers an open space where employee applicants and trainees have far more autonomy to express themselves and show off their practical skills, such as decision-making.

"We use Spark City to reinforce and connect a lot of different things together into one long routine," says Walmart associate, Daniel Shepherd, "It's an environment they can make mistakes in."

And while the risk of upsetting real-life customers is one thing, what about the risk of putting a human life on the line?

Medical training in the metaverse is one of the technology’s biggest applications. Digital twins will effectively become “test dummies” for medical students, used for the prediction of an entire array of possibilities: from how patients recover from surgery to the reactions they may experience from specific treatments, as a result of an increasing ability to map out and understand individual genetics. 

What's more, the dissection of virtual patients in place of human bodies is cost-effective and enables students to work individually for training purposes. They can improve their technical abilities and make mistakes with no consequences on intricate clinical case prototypes based on high-pressure real-world situations. And the best part? They can practice the same procedures over and over and over again with unlimited do-overs!

By replicating the human anatomy in incredible detail and simulating a wide variety of operating procedures; doctors, students and paramedics can now learn from the comfort of their own home in simulated operating and emergency scenario environments offered by the Exarta Metaverse.

Wrapping up

The possibilities of the education industry will be fully unlocked with the metaverse and its ability to facilitate dynamic, immersive learning experiences.

Technology has the power to improve our everyday lives, making something as seemingly mundane as learning - the eating your vegetables of the education world - so enjoyable that it becomes an automatic priority. 

In our new, developing, virtual world, children and students will have immersive experiences in foreign lands, master a more comprehensive range of skills, and, best of all, be better prepared to transfer what they learn by virtual means into the real world, all while navigating this brand new and exciting space. 

No more envisioning - it's here. The metaverse is transforming education, and, in the words of Doctor Seuss: the more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.

Discover infinite possibilities at Exarta.com.

Written by Hannah Clayton, Exarta.