I know, I know we are all feeling like, ‘I can’t do this anymore. I am so sick of COVID.’ But let’s face it, you gotta do what you gotta do. And so instead of sitting and sulking around for yet another year, we decided to bear it with a pinch of humour and a positive spirit. Let’s begin by talking about one thing at a time…

Outbreak of Omicron

Before we delve into how Omicron contagion is affecting the education space and what are the predictions that can or can not be followed, let’s first look at a clear picture of the damage already done. 

The new record was set when the US recorded the maximum number of Omicron cases in the last week of December which amounted to 267,000 in an average weekly calculation by a New York Times Database in Washington D.C.,Virginia and Maryland particularly hit harder. As the third year of the coronavirus wave looms, citizens are cautioned to take precautions as this wave is predicted to only get worse. 

While this data may mean different things to different industries, we will only focus on the education and the corporate sector here. 

Changes in School Strategies

Many schools, universities and educational institutions either returned to normal in 2021, or were on the verge of opening up. Although online education has aided in making teaching and learning easier, however, no number of online classes, edX’s courses or Khan Academies can make up for classroom teaching. Education still remains a very traditional industry and online learning continues to be hampered by factors like internet divide, opportunity gaps and more which can most likely only be overcome by in person teaching.

With this news in hindsight, many schools in African, Middle East, and Western countries which had announced plans to return to campus find their planning derailed. According to a report in Forbes, many of these institutions are putting their scheme on pause and are “mitigation strategies – from mandating vaccine booster shots to starting classes remotely next semester to postponing the start of the semester for a few weeks.” Another report in the BBC says, “many schools in the UK are ensuring their online learning provision is ready to go, in case they can’t open fully in the new year.”

As per this data, it will be safe to say that educational institutions will need to devise newer and more permanent ways of online learning and teaching and that they offer online courses which may stand against the will of the virus to battle and cope up with yearly lockdowns, viral uncertainties and temporary shutdowns in 2022. 

Changes in Corporate Offices

The regular office drill of nine to five was anyway expected to be reformed, especially after the growing up of the Gen X, Y and Z. But in the wake of the pandemic year after year, this change is only expected to be fast tracked. And now that flexible hour shifts and the WFH model has been adapted in most office spaces, it is only more likely that corporates will come up with even better and newer hybrid models to make working easier and more efficient. 

New edtech startups are rapidly propping up to meet the rising demands for corporate training programs and online courses. Likewise, new methodologies like microlearning, corporate programs, training modules, gamification in the workplace, recruitment-based programs etc. are filling in the gaps for in-person training and offline programmes in workspaces. And although people are becoming more and more comfortable working from home, let’s agree that we all want, for once, to get up, dress up and show up in the office for some fun watercooler conversations and socialising. 

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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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