Issue #19: Use Cases of Metaverse: Education
Sankalp Shangari
MD @ Rising Capital | Crypto & AI Investments | Writing on Macro & Crypto | Podcast: Greed is Good
The idea of the metaverse gained popularity during the recent epidemic when people tended to avoid face-to-face interaction, businesses embraced remote working rules, and digital communication methods were widely used. People were interested in learning more about the Metaverse and comprehending its use as a result of this development.
A very interactive three-dimensional virtual world is what the Metaverse symbolises. In the Metaverse, users can use their customized avatars to explore the environment and exchange various commodities like real estate, buildings, and other digital goods. These avatars are exact duplicates of the user and are equipped with all of a human's capabilities. The use cases of metaverse have been expanding with every passing day as the technologies around it get developed and more and more. This article would focus on how metaverse tied together with education can transform the way we learn.
The announcement of the COVID-19 epidemic compelled us to reconsider how we educate people. The metaverse, a 3D digital environment that combines the actual and virtual worlds, has been hailed as a significant trend in future education.
According to academics, one of the most important uses of the metaverse is education, which has a bright future. Accordingly, the metaverse in education can be seen as an educational environment enhanced by metaverse-related technologies that combine components of the virtual and real educational environments. We believe that the presence of the metaverse can serve as a new educational environment.
It enables students to enter the educational environment through wearable technology without being constrained by time or place, and it enables them to engage with various objects in real-time using their digital identities (e.g., avatars, intelligent NPCs, or virtual learning resources). They will be able to feel engaged as if they are in a real-world educational environment as a result. From this point, it is clear that integrating the metaverse into education can open up a wide range of amazing learning opportunities for students.
5 Ways the Metaverse Can Impact Learning and Capability Building
1. Learn & connect in an immersive virtual campus
Learning had already started to shift from traditional classroom settings to more virtual and blended ones before and during COVID-19. By using virtual reality (VR) goggles, students are able to enter a virtual campus or institution to learn, explore, and mingle. For instance, in this virtual environment, students can explore various learning pods, visit libraries and breakout spaces, interact with coaches and counsellors, and hang out with their peers.
By amalgamating people from diverse economic origins and geographically distant regions together, metaverse helps them study in a more efficient, adaptable, and time-efficient manner. Such digital experiences have the potential to really democratise education.
2. Boost real time skilling in virtual environments
The metaverse opens a wide gamut of opportunities for immersive, embodied skill development using real-world events and high-stress situations. If done right, it blends spatial design, data analytics, and VR to increase learner confidence, engagement, and application. Check out some of the advantages of metaverse training:
??Experience based education: Pharmaceutical industry expert?Novartis?uses a realistic, multiplayer VR simulation to teach life-saving lab techniques to its students and other stakeholders. Students enter a virtual lab where they can communicate with teachers while practising welding tubes, taking off bag caps, and labelling bags with unlimited redos. According to a research study, learners trained with VR devices displayed a confidence boost of 275% - a?40%?improvement as compared to in person class room training.
3. Explore different worlds through visualization and storytelling
After the over usage of dull Zoom encounters during COVID-19, the two defining propositions of a metaverse learning experience—visualization and storytelling—are the need of the hour. Through metaverse,?learners can enter a completely different environment or put themselves in another person's shoes with VR technology. For instance,?DaVita, a pioneer in health care, uses an interactive, multi-sensory first-person story to foster patient?
4. Improve accessibility for people with disabilities
The metaverse has the potential to amplify the disabled people's access to social and educational opportunities. It provides an immersive environment to all the users, such as going to a mall or grocery store, or putting things into a truck. Furthermore, it gives young adults with special needs, autism, and social interaction the chance to develop their interpersonal and employment skills. Through VR apps, individuals may communicate with others and practise skills in a secure setting without worrying or feeling overwhelmed.
On top of it, VR can enhance the quality of life for people who struggle with mobility or anxiety. For instance, the?Starlight?Foundation uses VR technology to allow young patients to "escape" from the confines of their hospital room and enter a different environment. They can experience travelling, playing soccer, and hanging out with pals through VR eyewear.
5. Increase data capture on learning performance
Organizations can gather previously untapped data to obtain insights into student behaviour to measure progress, discover gaps, and continuously improve the?learning experience by using the metaverse to build immersive learning experiences.. Additionally, teachers can take a more active part in data collection and lesson analysis on the efficiency of these environments for learning.?
The term "life" after the internet actually refers to the metaverse. Virtual campus activities, 3D simulations, and gamified activities are a few examples of this new approach to education's early implementations. This is just the beginning; there are countless opportunities to reimagine and democratise education in fresh ways thanks to this technology.
Is Metaverse Really Fit for Education Purposes?
What role will the metaverse play in educating people? The metaverse is essentially a fully functional digital universe that exists outside the bounds of physical reality, according to definitions of the term.
In essence, the metaverse would consolidate disparate virtual worlds into a common and lasting digital place. The metaverse can also be considered a collection of all future virtual and augmented reality experiences as well as the interactions that IoT, AI, and machine learning will enable between the virtual worlds and the physical world.
Conclusion?
The unique elements associated with the use of metaverse for education include augmented reality, virtual reality, mirror worlds, and lifelogging. You can explore the most number of different use cases of a metaverse in the gaming sector presently. However, the metaverse also has the potential to introduce new milestones for empowering learners and taking the education sector a notch higher.
For instance: you can access more immersive learning experiences with the help of the metaverse. In addition, it can help in a better simulation of real-world processes, systems, and objects for empowering learning. Furthermore, the metaverse can also help students document their learning experiences and enjoy the value of critical learning. Explore the other possibilities of implementing metaverse in the educational sector over the long run.
About Rising Capital?
As?Rising Venture Studio, we promote the entrepreneur and the company building process. We know what it’s like to be in the founder’s shoes and support the ‘next big thing’ in crypto, metaverse or gaming with apt resources and network.
As the Rising Capital Fund, we invest in early-stage crypto companies across the NFT, Gaming and Metaverse Sectors, while keeping a portion of our portfolio in liquid assets. We strive to take a fundamental approach to identify unique investment opportunities in the emergent and evolving crypto asset class.