As virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) technologies are fastly maturing and penetrating their way into various domains, notably traditional educational settings. Their potential to deliver an interactive and realistic experience combined with a fun learning environment for students and spark their interests has always been an area of interest for many scholars. While Metaverse might have several inconveniences as a new and disruptive education tool, this article explores the opportunities that immersive technologies could bring to the learning and teaching landscape.
Immersive technology in science learning
Science is one of the areas in which imparting knowledge to students is often found to be challenging because of its various abstract and complex concepts (Fidan & Tuncel, 2019), which are difficult to grasp even with the aid of textbooks and images. Given the unique attributes of VR/AR technologies and the crucial role of science education in K-12, it is imperative to integrate the two and capitalize on the full potential of such technologies. VR simulations’ immersive and interactive features make them an effective tool for inquiry-based learning (Zhang & Wang, 2021). It is found to be most effective in science education. Providing a rich sensory experience, it not only enables the students to engage actively in the learning process but also stimulates them to think further (Georgiou et al., 2021). It makes abstract concepts more concrete and provides them with a deeper understanding as they can now visualize complex phenomena which are otherwise impossible to be observed (Dede, 2009; Wu et al., 2019). However, such technology can still replace traditional teaching modes. Rather, it can complement traditional methodologies to better understand complex scientific concepts in light of their ability to provide immersive, interactive, and realistic visualizations, providing the students with a sense of presence and agency (Hite et al., 2019).
Immersive learning is also being explored as one of the creative avenues for facilitating informal science learning experiences, i.e., learning that is “unstructured, participant-driven and collaborative” (Asino et al., 2022). Virtual Citizen Science Expo Hall recently hosted on Mozilla Hubs, served as an interactive and collaborative learning space that supported learning about drought impacts and the importance of local monitoring activities to ensure community resilience (Asino et al., 2022). So it is safe to assume that this technology holds promise for the future as a pathway to engage communities in citizen science, environment monitoring, and other volunteering activities.
Immersive technology in physical education
The combination of immersive technology and physical education (PE) will not only make it more interesting for the students, it will also go a long way in improving the overall quality of the teaching (Zou, 2021). The traditional physical education methodology consists of a demonstration by the coach that is imitated by the students, which often needs a thorough analysis of the technical actions, which in turn will have a detrimental effect on the quality of teaching. However, with the assistance of VR technology, PE teaching can overcome the constraints of time, venue, weather, and other external conditions, facilitating even distance learning (Zou, 2021; Ding, et al., 2020). While it can be used by the coaches to provide targeted training for students, the latter can also employ it to observe and simulate and correct their moves repeatedly; record their actions and analyze them later to understand their mistakes, thereby fostering a system of self-personalized learning (Zou, 2021). The most appealing feature is that it can provide a realistic and immersive experience for students by simulating the actual PE teaching environment (Ding et al., 2020). This would stimulate an interest in students and help them to understand the tactics better so that in case of some dangerous sports, they will have a better idea of how to avoid or defend themselves from dangerous moves and thereby enhance the effectiveness of the learning process.
Currently, PE teaching is in high need of reform if it has to attract students’ interest. Immersive technology in PE teaching is a great innovation that can undoubtedly reform the teaching process to help the students develop a better interest in sports and gradually master their skills.
Immersive technology in special education
In addition to playing a crucial role in formal education as a tool for cognitive training and inquiry-based learning, interestingly, VR technology is gathering a lot of attention in the field of special education as an intervention tool for students with learning difficulties (Mitsea et al., 2022). People with learning disabilities often have trouble with sensory processing. They lack social skills and do not pick up on social cues at the same pace as others. This is where the virtual environment comes in handy with its immersive and realistic features. Virtual environments can provide controlled sensory stimuli with the added advantage that all aspects can be controlled in a safe environment without posing any real risks to the subjects.
Moreover, it can serve as a safe platform for practicing therapeutic techniques such as clinical hypnosis and neurolinguistic programming to train and develop metacognitive skills in them (Drigas et al., 2022). The immersiveness of the virtual world brings about a sense of presence, facilitating greater information processing. Moreover, it would enable behavior modification as it allows the subject to experience any situation as realistically as possible, generating a sense of empathy and different points of view (Herrera et al., 2018). Role-playing using avatars can accelerate such behavioral modification as subjects try to imitate superheroes, and in doing so, may develop self-regulated behaviors after them (Yoon & Vargas, 2014).
Studies have found that neural connections of the brain can be rerouted in the virtual environment, referred to as the brain’s functional plasticity, enabling the subject to perpetuate in the real world what was learned in the virtual world (Gera, 2018). Having recognized this potential of VR, it is now being experimented with in K-12 schools by exposing them to targeted social encounters of varying complexity to teach students social competency skills so that they can generalize it in the real world (Smith et al., 2022). The more realistic and immersive the experience, the less processing is required making it easier for the subject to use the pretense to link to the physical world.
Metaverse and higher education
Thanks to the pandemic, which transposed most of our routine activities to the digital world, the metaverse is now being explored as a medium for university teaching courses. Although it is widely applauded in the nascent stage, increasing the chances of it soon became a prevalent practice. Students who were taught in the metaverse mostly appreciated the realistic experience offered and the wide variety of activities they could undertake, which enabled them to have a deeper understanding of the concepts. Interestingly, even competitions such as moots are being held in the metaverse (Stewart, 2022). The metaverse’s immersive, interactive, and experiential learning undeniably has many advantages. But the biggest advantage is that it has made education more accessible than ever. You can be anywhere in the world and yet take part in a university course. It can also be used to enable better practical learning, especially in the field of medicine, by providing more hands-on experience in the immersive world (Stewart, 2022).
Immersive technology, therefore, can do to the whole education domain what the internet has done to brick-and-mortar stores. It can provide “a unique level of educational scaffolding” along with an “improved learning transfer from abstract to concrete domains” (Psotka, 2013). It is nothing but disruptive technology at its core, and the numerous innovative approaches to creativity brought about by it in the field of education should not be left unexplored.
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