A big advantage of virtual worlds in education is the enhanced ability to contextualise students’ learning. So, for example, we’re learning about how to design future autonomous vehicles. Then let’s go through a portal to immerse ourselves in a futuristic city, discuss the engineering design issues in the context that’s more fitting to the topic to encourage greater creativity amongst our students. Or we’re learning about what it means to climb Everest, and let’s go on a virtual tour taking in key landmarks as this educator has done. Immersive VR allows you to use 3D in more engaging ways compared to the real world. So, we can magic up a jet engine, which would clearly be hard to do, or impossible, in a real classroom, and then resize it, see it from different angles, perhaps even go inside it. This viewing from different perspectives, and agency over the world, could be really important for enhanced learning.
