AR and VR Applications in Education

10 applications of augmented and virtual reality in education, microsoft hololens, virtual body, google expeditions, virtual speech

10 USE CASES OF AUGMENTED AND VIRTUAL REALITY IN EDUCATION

The rise of technology tools like Augmented and Virtual reality is being used across many different sectors. One of these sectors we are looking at is education. In this post we will discuss the examples of how augmented and virtual reality is transforming education at the moment. AR and VR can effectively help students the way educational content is delivered globally and it became the future of education.

Bring Concepts to Life

Augmented reality and virtual reality enable teachers to bring concepts to life in a real-world environment. We can now use augmented reality to create a Tornado and bring it into the classroom to see what it looked like or we can have a virtual beehive in the classroom. And see how it works and we can dive into the beehive to see the inner workings of it. There are so many different examples of making education more immersive.

SkyView

SkyView app that allows you to look at the stars, where stars are located in the sky and it will then overlay with augmented reality. The different star formations and will label the different stars that you are seeing. This is something that is bringing education to life when you can look at the real night sky and have it labeled for you.

Microsoft HoloLens

The HoloLens provides a new way of teaching anatomy. It can speed up the process of learning those materials. The thing about medical school is that there is so much information to learn. With the HoloLens, you can see what is happening with the body. You can look at how the heart moves, how the brain processes information, and how information flows around in our brain. You can see when the heart fails, our closing, and hear the sounds. A click of the fingers is allowed students to see how everything is interconnected in the body.

Froggipedia

When we were little at school we had to dissect frogs which are pretty disgusting to teach us about the inner organs of animals. You can now do this virtually. So there is a froggipedia, a realistic and interactive learning AR frog anatomy app that allows students to use augmented reality to dissect a frog virtually and explore frog life cycle which is a better way of learning than using live frogs.

Virtual Body

Medical students can now use AR and VR technology or anyone interested in learning about the human body. For example, you can put virtual reality goggles on and have a virtual trip through the whole human body. You can flow into the bloodstream you can see the inner workings of how your body fights viruses which makes it so much more immersive this entire learning experience.

Immersive History

Another example is teaching history. There is a virtual reality experience of the 1943 blitz over berlin and this is using real-life footage. That was filmed on UK bombers flying over to berlin and you get a real insight of what it might have felt like to be part of this. Two controllers act as your hands. You use them to control the time machine, to watch all the objects from up close, and to play arcade games. WARS, your guide in the journey through centuries tells you about the visited times and explains how to use the time machine. History Horizon, the first application of its type, is available to visitors to the Palace of Culture and Science.

Google Expeditions

Google is a company that puts lots of emphasis on virtual and augmented reality. They have created google expeditions so you can have your virtual school trips. As a teacher, you can't take your kids to Mount Everest or many might not be able to take their kids to the Louvre Museum in Paris, France. With virtual reality you can now do this, you can take them to Everest, the Louvre, and experience fine art, paintings, and statues. With google expedition, you can take a field trip virtually anywhere without leaving your classroom.

Virtual Speech

Virtual speech is an app that allows you to practice a speech in front of an audience. You put your virtual reality goggles on and you can practice your presentations making them very real. Learners have a much higher engagement level compared to traditional learning methods. Using VR, the learner or trainer can track progress and quantify learning.

Specialist Training

Police forces are now using virtual reality to train their police officers especially for training them to deal with riots. When you want to arrest someone in a specific setting you can then train for this exact operation in virtual reality because you can recreate this and then people can train before they do it for real. They are making their decisions that bring out that decision-making and get that real sort of experience that you can’t replicate in the classroom.

Language Learning

Learning language, there is a monthly app that allows you to learn different languages. Language learning sometimes can feel very theoretical when you read books when you try to put yourself in a situation. In virtual reality, you can experience this for real. You can talk to real people have real conversations in real settings which makes language learning much more immersive and much more powerful.

These are examples that get you excited about using augmented and virtual reality in the education field.

Past challenges of AR/ VR technology

Accessibility

AR/VR hardware used to be expensive and clunky. It is used to be a challenge to find relevant hardware. But today, you already have the needed hardware in your hand – your smartphone to deploy.

Content

Historically applications and content that you could deliver for education and training, making it difficult to deploy.

Today, there are thousands of contents available on the platform that you can either use or you can modify for use in your context.

Ease-of-Use

A major reason why most organizations have not scaled to thousands of users is that it has been too difficult in the past.

Today, any teacher can create an AVR learning experience on the platform.