One of the biggest buzzwords of recent years is metaverse. The term encompasses the notion of a virtual world that blends reality with digital environments. We have seen steps towards this destination over the last couple of decades with the development of virtual online spaces and their convergence with virtual reality hardware. A detailed review in the International Journal of Economics and Business Research, has now looked at how the development of a functional metaverse might change education and take us beyond the confines of the traditional classrooms.
Shorouq F. Eletter, Ghaleb A. Elrefae, Amer Qasim, and Tahira Yasmin of Al Ain University, United Arab Emirates suggest that the metaverse holds the promise of immersive, interactive, and customized learning experiences. They explain that the metaverse in the context of education would likely combine virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) so allowing students to engage in a dynamic learning experience that could essentially be set anywhere in time and space. For example, historical sites, geological locations, science laboratories, even with the world of mathematical visualisation.
Unlike conventional e-learning platforms, which are commonly based on video clips, graphics, and text-based resources, the metaverse offers a digital space where learners can engage with the content, instructors, and peers in real time, often as so-called avatars or characters immersed in this meta world. These digital classrooms offer more than just a place for lecture-based learning. They foster collaboration, engagement, and creativity, and could allow countless new possibilities for students around the world.
The team mined the Scopus database of academic publications and found that there has been a significant increase in the number of studies exploring the intersection of the metaverse and education. The researchers have identified various themes such as student engagement, global collaboration, and personalized learning as the main drivers of this growing interest. Their findings suggest that the development of the metaverse in education has the potential to break down barriers related to time, space, and socio-economic background for students and educators alike.
Eletter, S.F., Elrefae, G.A., Qasim, A. and Yasmin, T. (2024) ‘Education in the Metaverse: a bibliometric exploration’, Int. J. Economics and Business Research, Vol. 28, No. 6, pp.42–55.
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