Virtual Reality (VR) can improve education by giving students memorable and immersive experiences that wouldn’t otherwise be possible. There are different ways through which virtual reality can be used for educational purposes.
Ways Virtual Reality Can Be Used In Education
Education technology has come a long way since its inception. It’s even more exciting now that we’re seeing advances in VR.
We’ll look at some of the different uses for virtual reality (VR) in education, including its use in teaching subjects like science, math, and engineering.
Virtual Reality in the Classroom
Virtual Reality (VR) is used in classrooms to give students of all levels an equal chance to learn in a more immersive and interactive way.
VR helps students understand concepts they might otherwise miss if taught using traditional methods that rely solely on memorization.
Whether it’s a virtual zoo or a scientific experiment conducted in a virtual laboratory, virtual reality helps students both see and interact with the lesson they’re being given.
Examples of Virtual Reality in Schools by Subject
We’re talking about virtual reality when we say “virtual reality.” It refers to a type of technology where people can experience simulated worlds through their senses.
Virtual reality (VR) allows learners to learn from real-life experiences instead of just reading about them. For example, instead of just reading about the Civil War, a student could actually visit Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and walk through the battlefields where soldiers fought.
Here, we’ll look at some examples of how VR can be used in different subjects of education.
Teach Writing Concepts in Language Arts
When teaching students to write, storytelling can be challenging because they may not know how to organize their thoughts into coherent sentences. Virtual realities can help them learn to think visually and use different writing techniques.
Descriptive Writing
Descriptive writing aims to convey information about something. A student can wear a virtual reality headset and explore all 178,000 square feet of the building. They can see how the space feels and hear what sounds are made inside.
Persuasive Writing
Writing persuasive essays aims to persuade readers of your point of view by using logic and facts.
A student who wrote about cleaning up the oceans could visit beaches around the globe and see the amount of garbage piled up on each shore.
They could see how trash affects marine wildlife by following a diver as he picks up trash along the ocean’s bottom. Persuasive writing involves researching an issue, and the immersive quality of virtual realities allows them to not only experience their findings but do so at a low price.
Develop Math Skills
Mathematics is one of our most important subjects when we’re young. It teaches us problem-solving skills and allows us to describe the things around us. VR can be used to enhance mathematics education by allowing students to visualize mathematical concepts.
Division
When we practice division in real life, we’re able to understand how to break down large quantities into smaller ones. In a virtual world where there aren’t any physical objects, students would be able to learn to break down groups of items into smaller groups through movement alone.
PEMDAS
As children learn PEMDAS, virtual realities could be used to move through the math equations to help them understand the order of operations. If they move a symbol incorrectly, then they could watch how it affects their answers.
Probability
Compound events can be tricky for seventh graders. Have them roll a six-sided die and see if they can figure out the probabilities of each outcome.
After they’ve learned that the chance of rolling a five is roughly 11 percent, they could then virtually throw a die 100 times and count how many times they got a five.
Making mathematics more concrete and fun for students makes the subject more interesting and enjoyable and reinforces concepts.
Science Education
Science teaches students important critical reasoning and problem-solving abilities that they need in today’s world.
Many school districts cannot afford to buy a real laboratory for their high school biology classes. That’s why they use virtual reality instead.
Chemistry
What happens when you combine an alkali metal (sodium) and water? Or when you add a metal (copper) to nitric acid? Is this safe? Virtual Reality allows students to experience these reactions in a virtual environment safely.
Biology
Virtual realities can be used to teach students science subjects that are difficult to understand just by reading textbooks. For example, take a trip inside a human body or explore the skeleton in virtual reality.
Watch how the human heart pumps oxygenated blood through the circulatory system.
Paleontologist
Become a virtual paleotologist and excavate dinosaur fossils all over the world.
Virtual Reality (VR) has been used for years in education, but now we’re seeing its use expand into other fields. For example, K-12 schools are facing budget cuts of up to $150 billion per year, so using VR to teach STEM subjects could be an effective way to help these schools stay afloat.
Social Studies
Social Sciences include History, Geography, Political Science, and Economics.
History
As discussed in our “Technology in the Classroom” piece, teachers can use technology to bring history lessons to life for their classes.
Students could learn about cultures and visit them all on the same day through virtual reality.
Geography
Students can use virtual reality to experience things they’ve never seen before, including climbing Mount Everest or diving into the Mariana Trench!
Geographers help us understand the world by exploring its physical features, including climate, land formations, bodies of water, and natural resources.
Political Science
One day, virtual realities may be able to help students interview former presidents.
We can use VR to simulate a visit to a local branch of a financial institution. Its learners could deposit checks, withdraw cash, or open online checking/saving accounts to help them learn basic banking skills.
We can use virtual realities to teach elementary students about goods and services. For example, we can show them how to be an accountant, lawyer, doctor, etc., by virtually role-playing these professions.
Physical Education Classes
Virtual reality in physical education can help students develop their skills in both individual and team sports activities.
Some sports cannot be played on school grounds because of limited space or equipment; VR eliminates some of these barriers.
PE Class
Students can learn about the sport of cricket by watching a virtual match and learning the rules and strategy as they watch.
As a teacher, you can give quizzes about basketball by asking the class to line up at the foul line and grade each student on his/her position.
Gym Equipment
Students could also visit a virtual fitness club where they could learn about different types of exercise machines, free weight exercises, and other physical activities.
Nutrition
Virtual reality can also be used to teach people about proper nutritional habits. For example, a person could be given a virtual bowl and asked to create a healthy meal using the correct amounts of each type of food.
Students could go shopping at a supermarket and check out the nutritional labels on various products and decide whether they’re healthy choices or not.
Conclusion
You can see from these example applications that virtual reality can be used for so many different purposes. However, they’re just a tiny fraction of the potential uses.
If you have any questions feel free to comment below
