Education Continuity in Crisis

Planning for the future effectively requires serious reflection on what gives our lives value while also overcoming continuation bias, which is an inner voice trying to convince us that access to those things could never be interrupted. Those with the imagination to contemplate the humanity altering events and have the resources to act introduce contingency plans, so there is continuity in various aspects of modern life even though the value we continue to derive will come in a drastically different form. On a grand scale, privately funded Mars missions seek to find a multiplanetary existence that will allow for physiological continuity in case our home planet becomes uninhabitable. At a local level, personal physiological continuity is pursued by people who stockpile food in order to outlast the effects of societal breakdowns or supply chain failures.

But “life is about more than surviving”, and for many, the primary vehicle for our needs of esteem and self-actualization is education. We go through education to become globally and historically conscious while gathering the skills needed to participate in the modern workforce; at least as importantly, we gain lifelong social networks and learn about ourselves in relation to our peers, giving us better direction through the stages of our life. Since disruptions to education no longer need to be imagined as we’ve very recently lived through them, parents, students, and educators are looking for technological solutions that are more than just mediums of information distribution.

Video conferencing has been a useful stopgap measure, but it’s been almost universally dissatisfying to students, who realize they are missing out on the fun and friendships that accompany in-person education. This dissatisfaction extends to teachers, who struggle to motivate their students as they naturally recede from the subject matter since they cannot engage with a class through a 2D screen. In the past two years, it’s become common in university classes for teachers to endure an entire semester without ever speaking to some students or even once looking them in the eye.

This is where educational services like VEDX Solutions enter to bridge the gap between distance learning limitations and student needs. We and our partner companies provide both hardware and software to schools that are seeing drops in attendance and enrollment because students or their parents feel like they can no longer function under these conditions. The opportunities for immersive education have emerged with the availability of easy-to-use, standalone, 6DoF headsets at a price point within reach for most people, especially if we consider the prices in the context of education. Their experience in VR, either as a replacement or supplements for Zoom classes, is engaging to students since it allows for more freedom of expressions and a return to spatial awareness that is lacking on a flat video call. There are unique ways of interacting with peers while teachers have greater access to features which allow them to teach in exciting new ways.

As a partner, Engage has been offering lecture spaces for years, and they combine their powerful features with classroom settings to create learning experiences that are memorable and enjoyable. The shared experience of witnessing 360 videos that bring students to the world’s most thrilling historical sites and launch them across the solar system will keep classes talking about it for days or weeks after. Classes may be synchronous (in real time) or asynchronous, and teachers can include video and audio content for a multi-media learning experience.

Multiverse also allows for lectures while specializing in ownership of spaces and activity hubs. Schools can wander through museum spaces on astronomy or psychology for an hour and retreat to their private campus to talk about the things they saw first-hand. Privately owned spaces may be decorated to reflect school spirit, or the course subjects as needed.

Remio is a partner that works to combine collaboration and fun, which will be much appreciated by any class. Teachers may give a presentation with slides and 3D models using their native tools, students can go to the conference room to brainstorm about the topic and share their individual perspectives, and if time remains, they can have a teambuilding experience through VR gaming. This is an especially effective platform for dynamic experiences and group cohesiveness.

We offer more than virtual classrooms through our partners, but we help with soft skills training through our partners at Bodyswaps. There are also unique 360 apps from VEDX that focus on career exploration for young people nearing graduation. VEDX can also work on custom solutions in-house or with our partners where needed.

Whether your school is setting up a lab that will remain on campus or setting up VR solutions for distance education through your school, VEDX Solutions can help you with this overwhelming process with our training and support. It’s never been more important to guarantee continuity of education for our young people, so schedule a discovery call and let’s see what we can do together.