New Delhi(India), December 29: Metaverse is a fast-evolving notion in the world of technology and higher education. It refers to a common virtual shared environment formed by the merging of the real and digital worlds. The boundaries between the actual world and the virtual world are muddled by endless opportunities for human interaction and activities. “The concept of Metaverse represents a significant evolutionary breakthrough. As the digital revolution continues to dominate our society, education will enter a new phase. Metaverse’s virtual environment is going to help to increase the effectiveness of the educational system. It has the potential to use the finest digital tools for learning while keeping in mind the science of education,” asserts Pranav Gupta, Plaksha University Founder.
Metaverse is significant in higher education because of its ability to improve and supplement conventional educational approaches. It offers a variety of fresh possibilities for both teachers and learners by offering a virtual learning space. The potential of Metaverse to support distant learning is one of its main advantages. This enables learners to participate in online classrooms and communicates with educators and peers from any location.
Along with facilitating digital learning, Metaverse provides teachers with new opportunities to interact with their students. It enables the development of innovative, practical learning opportunities that exceed the constraints of conventional classrooms due to its engaging and immersive character. Students might, for instance, design and exhibit their digital art projects in an art class while working with their classmates and getting instructor feedback. Metaverse has the ability to dismantle boundaries between educational institutions. Teachers and students from various institutions and different parts of the world may connect virtually to exchange information and skills, promoting a more diverse and inclusive learning environment.
“Metaverse provides an interactive and dynamic learning environment that is accessible from anywhere. It has the ability to fundamentally alter the way we see education by enhancing its accessibility and inclusivity. The virtual space is ideal for intellectual and physical exploration and has the ability to expose people to multiple viewpoints and share ideas and cultures in ways that foster understanding,” highlights Pranav Gupta.
The incorporation of the Metaverse into education can be aided by a focus on self-learning opportunities. Incorporating feedback and lessons from real-world experience into the virtual world might be helpful. It can be advantageous to employ virtual reality to replicate real-world assertions in virtual environments. Metaverse has immense potential for higher education. As it develops, it is expected to have a bigger impact on education in the future. Plaksha University believes that if it offers an immersive learning environment and promotes active class participation, learning becomes more interesting and participatory, as well as increases students’ operational abilities. It is possible by efficiently integrating Metaverse technology into the realm of education. Plaksha University intends to set up Metaverse laboratories inside the university in order to provide students with cutting-edge tech-based capabilities.
Some critics argue that sustaining a virtual asset-heavy curriculum would necessitate the use of expensive specialized technology and faster internet, both of which are unlikely to be within the financial means of students from low and middle-income backgrounds. This social divide may result in a technological gap, which may increase the level of inequality. Due to the countless other activities one might do when connected to the web; many people also think that it would be difficult for a child to focus since there would be so many distractions.
Pranav Gupta, Plaksha University Founder, emphasized the potential of Metaverse for collaboration and knowledge sharing but also noticed the concerns looming around it. “On a worldwide scale, Metaverse promotes cross-institutional collaboration and information exchange. Removing temporal and geographic boundaries enables the development of online learning communities where students and educators from multiple institutions may interact and share knowledge. We at Plaksha want to equip students with better upgrading skills so that they may establish a firm foundation for themselves.
This will make it simpler for students to get work across several industries, like machine learning, robotics, or artificial intelligence. Our future generation will inevitably spend a lot of time in this virtual environment. Therefore, there has to be some consideration and planning in this regard so that the shortcomings can be tackled. It is exponentially going to grow, and due to the immersive capabilities of virtual environments, learning will become more lifelike and experiential.”
