Learning and Virtual Reality

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Our upcoming webinar will address how to use extended reality technologies in a class.

Learning and Virtual Reality
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Reading time 2 minutes
Reading Time: 2 minutes

Extended reality can bring permanent positive changes beyond representing one more distance education tool.

Next Tuesday, February 23rd, we will broadcast a new webinar with the topic “Designing Learning Experiences with Virtual Reality.” In this session, Ana Gabriela Rodríguez, a leader in Educational Innovation at Tecnológico de Monterrey, will address the theme.

Rodriguez will talk to us about extended reality technologies and how to teach using this resource in classes. To better understand this session’s topic, one must be clear about what extended reality technologies are and their role during the pandemic health crisis when face-to-face lessons’ are impossible.

Three new realities

Education has had to adapt to a 100% online environment due to the health restrictions imposed to halt the spread of COVID-19 contagion. Operating in this panorama, educators have turned to the development and use of extended reality technologies.

Defining them simply, we present these technologies as the ensemble of three artificial realities: virtual, augmented, and mixed. The first of these realities, virtual, immerses users in an entirely artificial digital environment through wearables such as virtual reality headsets. Its objective is to create a simulated and immersive environment that the user perceives as close to reality.

Augmented reality adds layers of digital information provided by devices to real-world perception. These layers can be images, video, sounds, data, or 3D models superimposed on our reality in real-time. Elements of virtual reality and augmented reality constitute mixed reality, a combination of both. Usually, when an experience does not correspond entirely to virtual, augmented, or real-world reality, we classify it as an example of mixed reality.

These technological resources have been used in various fields such as video games, entertainment, advertising, and education. How have extended reality technologies contributed to improving the educational experience?

New distance education

In an educational context, extended reality can bring permanent positive changes beyond representing one more distance education tool. Technology enables students to learn in ways not seen before. It opens new paths, such as teaching elementary school children the states of their country as they observe a virtual map with the states’ shapes and some principal information about each. Another example would be three-dimensional models of body organs and diagrams displayed virtually in an anatomy class for high school students.

The possibilities of compelling and memorable learning increase significantly when audiovisual resources are complemented with interactive experiences. If you want to know how to apply extended reality technologies in your classes, do not miss our next webinar this Tuesday, February 23rd, at 4 pm Central Mexico time.

Translation by Daniel Wetta.

Sofía García-Bullé

This article from Observatory of the Institute for the Future of Education may be shared under the terms of the license CC BY-NC-SA 4.0