Remote Learning Is Here to Stay. Is VR Finally Next?

The COVID-19 pandemic forced schools, businesses, and organizations across the United States to adopt remote learning or connection options overnight. Now, remote work and online options are a mainstay in the country. As technology advances as a mechanism for learning and connection, be it through the rise of educational games or curriculums developed around video games, we’re already seeing VR and AR technology make its way into the classroom. However, a couple of factors currently prevent it from widespread adoption and use in educational institutions.

Learning Curves and Budget Barriers

For most educational institutions, the rate at which technology advances and evolves is much greater than the speed at which it can be adopted. This can impede or prevent deciding on what to invest in for fear that the equipment won’t get enough use or will be quickly outdated. In the end, the budget process of many institutions — and the politics that are often underlying — consider all of these factors and land on a more conservative approach in their purchase decisions.

Access and Accessibility

Some schools might have one VR headset for the entire building, while others might have 1:1 headsets. Other schools may allow students to experience AR on personal devices. The key is ensuring that VR/AR experiences are as device-agnostic as possible and supporting them with uniform lesson plans and activities that embrace different equipment setups.

Accessibility is also a significant consideration for students with various abilities (e.g., vision, audio, left/right/single-handed, etc.) and schools with different technology platforms and physical footprints. VR ecosystems are somewhat insular at this point (e.g., if you build for Meta Quest, it must be played on Meta Quest), so selecting the target platform with the target audience at the forefront is essential.

The “Obsolescence Debate”

Perhaps the most cliched perspective clouding the adoption of AR/VR tools is the notion that these technologies could somehow “replace” teachers the way automation was perceived to be a threat to supplant the assembly line worker in the 20th century. The unfortunate part of this perspective is that it slows the co-existence and integration that would enhance the role of the educator.

“Core Versus Cool”

The final caveat for AR/VR adoption is how the technology is perceived. A “cool factor” comes with any new technology or tool introduced in schools. Still, the result mustn’t be a place on the school calendar for “VR Day” but holds a meaningful place in the core curriculum.

Virtual Progress and the Future

Higher education displays some of the best examples of the impact VR/AR can have. Examples are harder to find in middle and high school, but the news is trending in the right direction for the following reasons:

• Quality and Cost: Meta launched its Quest 2 at a retail price of $299, a $100 decrease from the $399 mark already viewed by many as the threshold to broader mainstream adoption. Like nearly any new consumer technology, pricing always needs a few years to catch up to the “hype cycle,” which is always well ahead of the pricing cycle.
• Steadier and Cleaner: Two predominant consumer issues with VR technologies, headsets, in particular, have been motion sickness and general cleanliness. The former has steadily improved, resulting in more powerful hardware and innovative software design. The latter, meanwhile, has become a point of greater focus in the industry.
• More Content: According to Transparency Market Research, the global VR content creation market is in the midst of eight years, from 2016-to 2024, which could yield a compound annual growth rate of 89.8%. This content covers all academic areas, including math, science, history, civics, and systems thinking.

So if the basic classroom VR infrastructure is improving, what will move us into full adoption? Here are five tips that can help:

• Focus on the Body: VR isn’t merely a visual experience; “true” VR gives the player a sense of place and presence and the ability to process and handle objects within arm’s reach. This experience is especially effective when the player is portraying a character. This sense of presence involves more than just engaging the senses of sight and hearing. The immersive experience VR provides often has transformative results.
• Make VR a Creative Tool: VR isn’t just a virtual representation of the classroom but rather a creative extension where students can do things not possible in the physical environment. VR environments should be dynamic places where artists can paint in three dimensions or history buffs can inhabit the innovations of Benjamin Franklin.
• Design for Teachers AND Students: If a teacher in a virtual lab is most concerned with showing students how to mix chemicals while students might want to know how much it takes to break the vials, show them both! The learning will flow once you’ve drawn the player in through these tactile “educational fantasies.”

• Involve the Spectators: A classroom involves a class first, and forgetting about them in the VR experience leaves out so much that can bond students together. Figuring out a physical element that can accompany what the student(s) are experiencing in the virtual environment will engage all students and create meaningful interaction points.

The COVID-19 pandemic ushered in a new model of learning and connection sheerly through necessity. Virtual technology is ready. It just needs a real push.