The decision by Facebook/Meta to change the nature of modern education is not an empty promise. Facebook Reality Labs will invest a whopping $150 million in an educational program to improve tech development and training. It will use augmentation and virtual reality tools as the primary means to achieve its goals. 

What is Meta-Facebook? 

For most people, the concept of a metaverse is a mere fantasy. It refers to a virtual reality space where people can embed themselves to get an all-around immersive experience. In a typical video game, you control the character. However, in a metaverse, you are the character! 

Related Post: Virtual Reality as a Game-changer in Education

Metaverse and Education

Even for a company as big as Meta, achieving such a feat is tricky, due to which it will partner with Coursera and edX. Together, they will promote the Spark AR Curriculum of Meta using augmentation and virtual reality. These companies will convey more information regarding their partnership and goals in the coming weeks.

Even though the introduction of the metaverse, a concept emerging in fiction, seems like a shock, one should have expected Mark Zuckerberg to implement it. Zuckerberg has always displayed a keen interest in virtual reality. In 2014, Meta, then known as Facebook, bought the VR company Oculus for $2 billion. 

Is It Realistic?

The depiction of the metaverse in Zuckerberg’s video has a combination of technologies geared towards education. At 31:00, a girl learns astrophysics by looking at the planets up close, zooming in on Saturn’s rings. Instead of reading from the screen, the girl interacts with the solar system. While the idea of such an in-person experience sounds good on paper, is it for everyone? 

Virtual reality sets require a lot of space and money. The VR sets by Meta have failed to capture the market and have even discontinued one of their products called Rift. However, Meta still sells the Oculus Quest 2 and claims the sales have improved without releasing any data. 

All things included, investing capital to integrate virtual reality and education during a pandemic seems like a bad idea. Officials prefer to invest their resources into something better than manufacturing expensive VR sets and materials.

Irrespective of the idea, the metaverse will not become a reality for the next decade or so. Andrew Bosworth, the VP of Facebook Reality Labs, suggests “the metaverse is not a single product that one company can build alone.” The firm has also explained that no one company will own the metaverse.

Also Read: Most Interesting Edtech Trends of 2021 That Are Here to Stay

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Augmented Learning does away with a big chunk of descriptive text. Instead, the learners confirm their observations with the help of visual aids, which are better for knowledge and information retention. Moreover, learning can be directed toward gathering facts without much difficulty and applying learning in real-time rather than reading and memorizing content.

The first requisite to employing Augmented Learning in your classroom is to ensure that every student has a smartphone/tablet with a functioning camera. Thanks to the ubiquitous nature of technology, smartphones are not too difficult for students to have. Chances are that your students already have one at home. For the ones who don’t, their inexpensive nature has made procuring smartphones an easy task.

Implement Augmented Learning in Your Class

There are a variety of Augmented Reality tools that are already available on the internet. These tools help create learning content that is both exciting and informational.

1. Educators can easily add speech bubbles, characters, Snapchat-like filters, open-ended and multiple-choice questions and also embed YouTube videos when creating their own AR experience for students.
2. Employ creative digital puzzle boxes! Several AR-related tools are available on the internet to offer learning activities for students in the form of puzzles. For example, Breakout EDU.
3. Create customized markers. Augmented Reality markers, or AR-markers, are visual cues that trigger a certain virtual response. Using various tools available on the internet, teachers can conveniently make their custom AR markers. There are already several custom-made markers available online. These custom markers ensure that Augmented Learning is directly linked to the content of the lesson.
4. Go on an Augmented Journey! AR experiences can also be placed at physical locations through the use of GPS coordinates. Teachers can add layers of learning and interaction in a day outing. They can also assign points to places of interest, which the student can collect by visiting.
5. Encourage Students to Create. Some platforms, such as the Metaverse AR Platform, do not require any coding to create AR experiences. So, students can make use of these resources to demonstrate learning in a single class. Moreover, they can share the final product with friends and family outside the classroom.

Aurasma and Layar are two apps that employ Augmented Reality for education and are easy to set up. Using the Aurasma app, one can link AR triggers with online content that may include a static image, site content, et al.

Limitations of Augmented Learning

1. The dependence of Augmented Learning on technology is its Achilles heel. Any student who wishes to experience Augmented Learning, or any educator who is thinking of using Augmented Learning as a learning tool in class, must have unfettered access to smartphones or tablets. Consequently, the experience of Augmented Learning depends on the performance of the device in use. This can soon become frustrating if the technology does not function as expected.
2. There is a learning curve involved with developing your own, original AL content. Although there are a plethora of tools available on the internet that will help you develop the kind of AL content you are looking for, expect to put in the time and effort to get a hang of it. You don’t have to be tech-savvy, but creating original AL content does require a few key skills that involve practice.

Teaching in institutions dominated by the Gen Alpha is not the same as the olden times. In a classroom filled with young tech-savvy freaks, who perhaps are exposed to technology more than the teachers, it is almost inevitable and unthoughtful to employ teaching methodologies and strategies that are not influenced by technology. Over the years, Augmented Reality has inadvertently become the most useful resource to aid learning. Blended Learning has been yielding significantly exceptional results in educating children and transforming them into resourceful thinking individuals. Augmented Reality has not just aided the academic front but also contributed to the holistic development of learners. Therefore, it would not be an exaggeration to say that AR is indeed the key to a developed and prosperous future, both economically and socially.

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