Digital natives have been born and raised surrounded by technology. The new digital era in which they are fluent forces traditional education to step aside and embark on a new path towards virtual worlds.
An article in El País said that “65% of primary school students will be working in 10 or 15 years in professions that do not even exist yet.” This is due to the speed with which technology penetrates the work sphere, modifying, eliminating and creating jobs.
To keep up with this reality, the new educational trend of virtual worlds is being used. This is the name given to a type of virtual community that simulates an artificial environment in which to interact with other users. Its use in education allows students and teachers to stay connected.
Various virtual worlds
Augmented reality:
Girl with augmented reality glasses
Augmented reality is a technology that allows virtual data to be incorporated into a real object. Using a multimedia device (phone, tablet or laptop), you can read the information entered into the virtual world about the object in front of you. This information will be read by the device's camera and, in addition to the real object, additional material that expands the information can be displayed on the screen.
There are different levels of augmented reality:
Level 0. Hyperlinks : These are used to link the device to the website that hosts the additional information that we want to introduce. This allows, for example, viewing a video about the origin of World War II during an exhibition of physical elements of the war in a museum.
Level 1. Markers : These link to figures that, when scanned, will provide us with a 3D model of the image in front of us in the real world. They are used, among other things, to show how the elements of a painting “come out” of it.
Level 2. GPS : Markers are replaced by the compass of mobile devices, allowing virtual images to be superimposed on those offered by the device's camera in the real world. For example, using this, you could see a dinosaur in the middle of the Madrid Metro.
Level 3. Bionic glasses or contact lenses : They offer a complete experience that fuses reality with augmented reality, allowing all types of audiovisual material to be incorporated into real objects and, therefore, providing a complete experience that is not yet being exploited due to its high cost.
Augmented reality of the human body
The use of augmented reality in general is still a challenge, but it is a guarantee of motivation for students. It allows them to experience the world around them in a completely new and engaging way, boosts their motivation and enriches learning.
Adapting these technical possibilities to the classroom is not easy for teachers, which is why there are specialized courses on the creation and application of audiovisual material. Things are also made easier with some very useful Apps to put this educational trend of virtual worlds into practice . There are several on the market, we recommend these:
4D Anatomy : Allows you to observe the human body and its different organs in 4D, allowing you to interact with the elements and making learning about them easier. Thanks to this application, you can observe, for example, a beating human heart in four dimensions, so you can see it from all angles.
Layar : Any printed material can be made interactive thanks to this service. Its operation is simple, you just have to upload the material you want to link, add a “button” that activates augmented reality and publish it. Thanks to this platform, you can add explanatory videos to your notes, for example.
FETCH! Lunch Rush : This app will make learning math much easier as it offers a visual display of the problems and operations that elementary school students must carry out. It's simple, interactive and very entertaining. A sure hit for the little ones.
3D Printing:
As we mentioned at the beginning of the article, technology list of active phone numbers is changing current jobs. If 3D printing is already a reality for several engineering jobs, everything seems to indicate that it will be indispensable in the future for various areas, so familiarizing young people with it is a necessity.
On the other hand, according to experts, 3D printing can be used to implement other subjects in a different way, thereby achieving greater awareness of
The ideal way to incorporate this knowledge in virtual worlds into the educational agenda of young people is to introduce it into the different disciplines that already exist as an added bonus. For example, in technology class, the design of a three-dimensional object on the computer can be proposed, which will then be printed. This is a very common practice in the maker movement that is making such a strong impact in education.
3D Visualization:
Girl using 3D visualization
There are several experts who argue that 3D visualization facilitates learning and helps the message to better penetrate the minds of students. It is no news that visual resources serve to shape and consolidate educational content, favoring that the most complex and abstract concepts are easily recognized and memorized by students.
To help us visualize these elements in 3D, technology is used. As we mentioned in the previous point, there are applications that will allow you to implement 3D images in your content. For example, the aforementioned 4D Anatomy that allows the observation of an organ from all angles through a mobile device.
There are other applications that will allow you to apply this educational trend in the classroom , some of the most popular are:
Reachout Interactive : It has interactive teaching materials for different primary and secondary school subjects such as mathematics, physics, English, chemistry and biology. Its content will help you show your students many concepts that are difficult to understand on paper, such as how a heart pumps blood.
Tactus Technologies : Among other things, through it you will be able to make a 3D visualization of virtual dissections of different animals.