The education sector has never been as fast as others in adopting new and improved technologies. However, the pace at which our business and personal lives are moving ahead in the technological space, especially in Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR), it is unlikely that it leaves the education sector alone.

As per Statista, the market share of Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality is expected to reach $215 billion by 2021.

The same old format for teaching is not that effective anymore, as it is mostly based upon fact retention and doesn’t solve the problem of information overload for the students.

That is the reason why students are now reading more e-books, watching more videos and search engines are getting busier with searches.

Now, if we talk about augmented and virtual reality, they do exactly what the young learners look for – engagement. They provide an interactive learning experience.

The specific uses of Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality will be too many to list here. So, let us cover some of the major applications of AR and VR in the field of education.

AR and VR in Learning & Development

You must have already accepted the fact that most kids now love tabs and smartphones more than books.

Augmented and Virtual reality is therefore much useful in giving an interactive learning experience to children.

They engage students better, enable faster learning and provide a better quality of education.

Augmented reality doesn’t require expensive equipment. The students just need to have a mobile device to access all the necessary educational information for a subject anywhere.

With VR, students just don’t need to depend on text descriptions and pictures in the textbooks to learn. They can explore the place they are learning about in the virtual 3 dimensions.

With 3D modeling of historical monuments, scientific instruments, etc. learning is not only engaging it is becoming more and more exciting.

For example, a virtual reality history class can let the students feel how the ancient Romans lived, how they carried their lifestyles and everything in great detail.

In an augmented reality biology class a student can hover over the image of lungs on their textbook and they can get an animation or a video of how the lungs work. Or they can scan a chemical formula to see what it is and what does it constitute.

For higher education areas, students of architecture can use VR to visualize their designs in 3D to see if they could work in reality

VR accentuates ‘Learn by Doing’ approach. It lets students get hands-on experiences in realistic environments and engage in exercises, that too without any danger of harm.

With technologies like Google’s Tilt Brush, students are able to take their creativity to a whole new level. They can literally ‘interact’ with their imagination.

It is quite established that VR gives a more immersive learning experience than AR, however talking pragmatically, AR holds a stronger position in the education sector as of now.

AR being less expensive and easier to implement within classrooms has got a wider scope of getting implemented across schools and educational institutions.

Virtual reality being a little difficult to implement widely will definitely not be a scenario in the very near future.

Companies like Google, Snap, Microsoft, Niantic (they made Pokemon GO), and NVIDIA are steadily working on AR and VR technologies to make them cheaper, easier and better than before.

I am surely going to be envious of our next generation for the way they learn. What about you?

See how Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) help you get your business to the next level.