VR and AR for Future Education

Abstract

VR (virtual reality) and AR (augmented reality) have been introduced in education for many decades. VR and AR have been adopted in a wide range of educational programs, including astronomy, medical education, engineering, physics, geology, biology, chemistry, mathematics, geometry, language learning, arts, interactive books, training for new teachers, and many other disciplines. It was widely adopted in industries, such as tour guides, industrial design and maintenance, museum, laboratory simulation, and the most popular games. These technologies enabled educators to break the limitation of location and/or time in education and bring a totally new experience to learners. Many empirical studies indicate adoption of VR and/or AR in education had several positive influences on students’ learning engagement, understanding, process, and outcome. However, there are still challenges in adopting such technologies in a wide range of educational programs due to some barriers, such as high cost of devices, high cost for content development for educational purpose, training for academic professionals and educators to introduce these technologies in their teaching methodologies, etc. There are arguments for further investigation on design, development, and evaluation of VR and/or AR in education. When VR is combined with experiential learning theory, KOLB (a learning program combined with traditional Kolb theory and emerging technologies) brought a new experience to students and learners. The design and development process for KOLB is introduced in this chapter. With the increasing number of mobile technologies and decreasing costs on telecommunication consumption in recent years, VR and AR technologies are introduced in more applications and programs, which have influenced many industries. These technologies will lead education into a new phase and link current teaching and learning with future world.