A gamified education system with the help of augmented and virtual reality is one of the best methods to encourage students and grab their attention.
“In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun. You find the fun and – SNAP – the job’s a game.”
Mary Poppins
This famous quote by Mary Poppins is so apt for any industry or walk of life. However, what if we take it literally and apply to education industry? Education becomes fun. Bringing gamification to education industry with the help of augmented and virtual reality will change the face of global education. Gamification with immersive experience will not only lead to higher engagement but also better knowledge transfer.
Given the current state of AR and VR technologies, immersive tech is becoming popular even though still in its nascent stage. Digital learning has grown manifolds during the 2020 pandemic and it is expected that will become an integral part of the education system. Augmented and virtual reality not only provides autonomy to the learner but adding gamification to it will add healthy competition to the home learning environment. Your kid may be interested to know about vast ice covers of Antarctica, northern lights, desserts of middle east or even what mars looks like! All of these immersive learning experiences have already started being available and will only see growth in future.
They say travelling is the best form of education. You get to learn through experience about so many different languages, cultures and traditions, history of different places and broaden your perspective about the world. For most of us travelling does not come in our lives until we grow up. Well, with augmented and virtual reality, this can become and integral part of kids growing up years and allow them to think beyond.
Now add gamification to the already immersive experience. Healthy competition amongst peers to complete immersive learning experiences, understand concepts and create AR VR models and projects. Even though gamification is not all points, badges and leaderboards, but if done thoughtfully can lead to intrinsic motivation amongst the kids.
Nowadays teachers are already experimenting with AR VR based education. For example, a teacher in Karnataka has wonderfully implemented the augmented reality in his classroom learning system and encourages students to build augmented reality projects of their own.
AR is particularly helpful for teaching, while it is also inexpensive as compared to VR learning. Instead of having to buy expensive set-ups, learners only require a smartphone or tablet where they can learn everything they wish to with ease. AR makes learning much more accessible and interesting for students. There are all sorts of different AR apps available on smartphones which can help students of all ages
However, just because AR is inexpensive doesn’t mean that VR isn’t a great option either. Many might say that VR offers a much more immersive and fun learning experience for children as compared to AR. Children get to learn while performing fun tasks in the virtual world. These VR games test their knowledge in fun ways and simultaneously teach children new things as they progress. Depending on the application, children can learn more about space, art, the human body, and many more things using both AR and VR technology. It’s fair to say that both platforms are normalising the gamification of education.
