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Virtual Reality has been making forays in Education for quite a while. Its positive effects are seen even more due to the recent Covid-19 pandemic. With nationwide repeated lockdowns and forced quarantines, the world is forced to relook at all collective human activity. Education is one of the activities on which people spend a few decades of their lives on. With constant updates in science and technology, learning has become a way of life now for almost all disciplines. The next few decades will redefine all human activities like never before, thanks to Artificial Intelligence and Robotic Process Automation. Virtual Reality in Education is expected to reach its critical mass soon due to the proliferation of Virtual Reality Head Mounted Devices (VR HMDs) in the past decade.

What Is the Pressing Need for VR to Transform Education?

When everything is transforming, so should our ancient pedagogies and methodologies followed in imparting education to our children. It is a cold fact that we have been slowly moving from static 2D content in the form of books with text and pictures to video-based and game-based learning in the past 3 decades. Nowadays, even kindergarten students are learning online with tablets and mobile devices. With so many devices and a choice between platforms being available, the need to standardize the delivery platforms arises. Along with it, arises a need to make learning compelling and engaging, resulting in students’ success outcomes. All of these make Virtual Reality the chosen delivery medium due to its engaging and immersive learning structure. The global virtual reality education sector market is expected to grow to 4,600 million USDs, which leads us to the crux of this article as follows:

3 Ways in Which Virtual Reality Can Transform the Educational Sector

They say that nothing is more practical than a good theory – not because it is just based on facts, but also due to the practical and visible results. Here are some positive results that VR can bring about in the student and learning community. These results are unique to VR and cannot be brought about in the traditional pen-and-blackboard approach to learning. Let us see how VR scores more points:

1.VR creates a safe and stable environment for all activities, especially ones involving risks

All students, irrespective of their geographical locations, can access and perform lab tests and understand complex phenomena within a safe and predetermined virtual environment. Be it complex chemical reactions, physics- and nature-oriented phenomena, or learning to operate a flight, students can safely appreciate the nuances involved without endangering themselves.

2.VR fosters accelerated learning and better remembrance due to its holistic and immersive nature of learning delivery

Since all learning is immersive, the chances of distraction are absolutely zero while learning with virtual reality. The environment is not only immersive but also interactive and fosters active learning as against passive learning which can happen very much in a traditional learning environment. VR Learning is now incorporating micro content modules, which complements the flipped classroom approach of learning.

3.VR helps students visualize the outcome of their efforts in real time

In traditional learning pedagogies, students could not predict or visualize the outcomes in real time. There was always a time gap involved between learning, testing, and validating student success outcomes. In Virtual Learning, students get to know their learning outcomes beforehand. Further, they get to have a “hands-on experience” while performing complex science experiments virtually. This will help them better remember the process and steps involved.

Takeaway Thoughts

How can your students and educational institution benefit by incorporating virtual reality in learning?