Is Education a Part of the Growing Metaverse?

The metaverse is being used by educators for virtual field excursions, STEM classes, and physical education, even though social media and gaming powerhouses are making significant investments in the area.

The metaverse, according to Vriti Saraf, founder and CEO of k20 Educators, a worldwide social learning community, is "a virtual replica of everything you can do in real life." It is publicly available, unclaimed, and allows a wide variety of platforms to coexist there.

In a recent TV commercial, Meta—which is also formerly known as Facebook—shows a day when college students don a small VR headset to attend their classes, where lecturers can display 3D models of biological cells or representations to pupils who can pull them apart to illustrate a point.

It’s the latest hint that Big Tech sees education as a critical piece to developing a metaverse. The immersive Internet of Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality is currently an inconsistent and ambiguous jumble of clunky tech gear and different software channels inspired by sci-fi.

Future K–12 schools and college courses will face both many exciting opportunities and formidable obstacles as a result of this technology. Two guests who have seen VR help us sort through this new area and are currently debating these problems were asked to join EdSurge’s Podcast regarding the topic.

The two attendees include Greg Heiberger, the associate dean of academics and student success at South Dakota State University, and Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, a psychology professor at Temple University and co-author of a recent Brookings Institution policy brief about education in the metaverse with recommendations for Facebook and similar tech giants on how to create a metaverse that is education-friendly.

Education experts strongly believe that the metaverse is essential in schools for students in this day and age. The range of opportunities available online are unparalleled, empowering pupils through the power of technology and innovation.