Exploring XR Potential for Homeschooling and Remote Learning

As our Educators in VR Events Team worked with our special interest group, Virtual Schooling, to put together this month's UniVirtual Experience for Virtual Schooling, May 9-11, an exciting opportunity for parents, teachers, and schools to learn more about the potential of using XR, specifically VR and AR, in remote learning and homeschooling.

The free Educators in VR conference is hosted in AltspaceVR, ENGAGE XR, and Rec Room, exploring the full potential of learning within the virtual and augmented reality environment.

We will be touring Rec Room and ENGAGE XR to highlight their potential for virtual classroom and educational experiences. We'll be touring educational worlds in AltspaceVR and discussing a wide range of educational apps that cover science, history, culture, and much more.

We also have presentations and discussions on learning Unity and how to develop educational games, excellent information for educators, parents, and especially students eager to expand their programming, design, and development skills and introduce them to the learning process. Be aware that some events may require advance registration and have limited seating, so hurry!

Virtual Reality, Homeschooling, and Remote Learning

Before the pandemic, the United States was the predominant country supporting homeschooling not just as a practice but an industry. With the pandemic, homeschooling and remote learning became the default around the world.

While some parents were frustrated and eager for the teaching responsibility to return to the schools, many parents embraced it and continue to teach their children from home for a wide variety of reasons.

Estimates are that approximately 9 million Americans report they attended homeschool at some point in their lives, with global numbers over one billion. It is estimated that between 30,000 and 100,000 children are homeschooled in South Africa, over 60,000 in Canada, France, and Russia, and up to 100,000 in the UK.

As schools, teachers, and homeschooling parents and organizations have learned through experience that teaching online with Zoom, Teams, and other online conferencing tools is taking a toll on students mental health and academic development. Research studies are ongoing to understand why, but those learning within the VR/XR environment are not reporting the same issues. Most are reporting the opposite.

Students feel present, embodied in the experience. Instead of reading or watching videos about the history of Greek culture, mythology, government, and its influence on modern society, they can walk through a 1:1 scale reproduction of the Athens Acropolis or Agora marketplace at its peak in AltspaceVR to discuss or even role-play the lesson.

Or they may explore the vastness of our Galaxy and universe and experience astronomy in a unique way, including watching the expansion of the sun to become a red giant. What about flying into the center of Jupiter or Venus? Walking through the rings of Saturn? Listening to the sounds that probes studying the planets have recorded? Or traveling through the time compression of a black hole?

ENGAGE XR hosts a variety of educational workshops and companies offering classes in science, history, and more like VictoryXR. The virtual reality environment puts the students in the middle of the educational experience so they may wander around medical and research labs and interact with objects, exploring anatomy, viruses and bacteria, and even do science experiments.

VR apps like Traveling While Black, Becoming Homeless, Anne Frank House, and Notes on Blindness offer unique perspectives on history as well as empathy and compassion. The 1943 Berlin Blitz, Apollo 11, and other historical VR apps take us to other time. Tilt Brush, OpenBrush, Blender, Gravity Sketch, Unity, and other VR and 3D modeling programs and apps explore the creative side of XR, often setting students on a future career path.

Niantic's Ingress continues to be an invaluable AR educational game that provides not only local educational information but exercise. The free cellphone global game, the forerunner to Pokemon Go, has been a favorite of students, explorers, and many around the world as they hunt for and link landmarks together to capture land for their team of agents. Many families play it together, as they go on walks or visit parks, taking advantage of the game play to learn together about the history and artwork within their community.

It is still early days, and there are challenges to the technology, but as metaverse and virtual worlds improve along with the hardware to support it, teachers are able to recreate more immersive and interactive experiences.

Join Educators in VR members and the public in the free Virtual Schooling UniVirtual Experience 2022 in AltspaceVR, Rec Room, and ENGAGE XR and learn about the potential for learning in VR, AR, and XR, and what the future holds for immersive education.