Students need opportunities to learn about, explore, and create with emerging technologies, and educators need the right resources to provide guidance. What the Tech? An Educator’s Guide to AI, AR/VR, the Metaverse and More by Rachelle Dene Poth explores how to incorporate emerging tech such as artificial intelligence and virtual reality into the classroom in exciting ways that supercharge learning. In this excerpt, Poth looks at the metaverse and opportunities to create immersive learning experiences for students.
What Happens When We Meet Students in the Metaverse?
You can imagine the metaverse as similar to a multiplayer, online role-playing game, such as Final Fantasy or Fortnite, or a world-building game, such as Roblox or Minecraft. These can be considered more like meta-platforms, as part of the metaverse ecosystem. Instead of being part of an evolving story in a fantasy world, however, your digital counterpart (avatar) could go about ordinary business in an environment similar to real life, having “in person” meetings with distant colleagues, “sitting in” on an out-of-state university class, and the like. Today, virtual spaces such as the Second Life platform simulate the metaverse concept—and have for some time.
Different than meeting through Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, or other conferencing platforms, meeting in the metaverse creates a more realistic experience that enhances social presence and interaction. While participants are in the same “space” in all of these, the metaverse’s use of augmented and virtual reality enhances the feeling of social presence and being in close proximity to other participants, even those from far-flung parts of the world. It frees participants from the separate environments of their video-feed boxes and gathers them in a shared digital environment.
Accessibility, Acceptance, and Avatars
The metaverse promotes accessibility as well. When travel is challenging due to geographical location, cost, or physical reasons, the metaverse provides an inclusive place for more people to gather, collaborate, and communicate. For learning, it can create more ways for learners to access education, beyond just attending classes (or even a whole school) remotely. Imagine having conversations with famous historical figures who are re-created using AI in the metaverse space, or visiting museums, art galleries, or impossible-to-reach places (the past, the inside of a volcano). For friends, family, or co-workers, the metaverse is a space to connect and engage in learning, working, and socializing in a way that is different from and more engaging than traditional methods. This is the essence of what the metaverse is, except that the activities possible go beyond short meetings or gatherings with friends and potentially transform how people live, learn, and work.
Metaverse-based learning offers the potential to open more opportunities for students to reach deeper than traditional, physical classrooms allow.
Applications in Education
Metaverse-based learning offers the potential to open more opportunities for students to reach deeper than traditional, physical classrooms allow. It offers a “safe platform for hands-on activities like science experiments, AI-driven avatars, and virtual tutors” that provide for more personalized learning experiences for students and can assist with meeting their specific interests and needs. Through the metaverse, students can have access to and immerse themselves in a variety of learning experiences and environments beyond those offered by their local schools and communities. For example, Harvard University created a VR experience that enables students to explore the molecular structure of proteins.
Teachers, too, can benefit from the metaverse. For example, Beata Mirecka-Jakubowska, the founder and CEO of Intercultural Education Consulting Group, summed up her experience using UNIVERSE (a virtual campus for online learning from ViewSonic) at EDUtech Asia conference by saying, “It blew me away. I could walk between student groups and hear all the conversations. I could stop and talk but still hear other groups in the background. It was totally different from [video conferencing].” To see the increased student engagement and interactions in the virtual learning environment, especially from students who were typically reluctant, was a game changer for her. Mirecka-Jakubowska encourages educators to “embrace the changes and embrace the challenges. . . embrace new technology and improve upon it to enhance learning.”
Taylor Shead, the founder of the learning platform Stemuli, embraces metaverse technology as well. In the “Metaverse of Learning” episode of the Getting Smart podcast, she discussed how the metaverse can create an opportunity for “increased equity and access in learning environments.” Think about students who want to study a specific major that is offered only at distant or cost-prohibitive institutions of learning or about students with physical limitations that impede attending a university in person. The metaverse and rise of metaversities could be the answer.
What the Tech?
How to create impactful learning experiences so that students can apply their knowledge to real-world problems, collaborate with peers from around the world, and develop critical thinking skills.
Rachelle Dené Poth is an edtech consultant, presenter, attorney, author, and teacher. She currently teaches Spanish and a course on emerging tech that covers AR/VR, artificial intelligence, coding, gaming, digital citizenship, video animation and more. She obtained a Juris Doctor degree from Duquesne University School of Law and a Master's in Instructional Technology. She is currently pursuing a second doctorate, focused on Educational Technology.
Rachelle is an ISTE Certified Educator and a Microsoft Innovative Educator Expert. She is a past-president of the ISTE Teacher Education Network. In 2019, she was a recipient of the ISTE Making IT Happen Award and throughout her career, she has received several awards for her volunteer service to education. She is the author of several books, including How to Teach AI (ISTE, 2024) and Chart a New Course (ISTE, 2020).
