Meta has announced a huge upcoming collaboration. The Californian tech giant has entered into an educational partnership with 15 universities across the United States.

Unveiled in September, the initiative will see Meta extend its reach into academia. Each of the 15 university partners will incorporate Meta's Metaverse technologies into their classrooms – and Meta will help facilitate lessons carried out in virtual and augmented reality with its Quest devices. 

When the teaching potential of immersive devices is considered, it's clear to see why educational establishments would look to take advantage of these technologies and bring such benefits into their classrooms.

While schools have been slowly but surely exploring extended reality (XR) as a teaching tool over the past few years, Meta hopes to expedite this movement with a project that's set to be the largest-scale collaboration with the educational system seen so far.

The vision

Meta hopes the pilot will "create new ways for teachers to inspire students". And in its announcement, it laid clear its vision and optimism for education in the nascent Metaverse.

"Technologies that create a sense of presence and shared space offer new ways for teachers to do what they do best – teach", it said. 'While it is still early days for these technologies, we’re already seeing promising signs of the impact they can have."

Meta will use the partnership to help educators access new teaching tools, as well as to thoroughly assess the efficacy of immersive learning. 

What's in it for Meta?

Of course, if successful, the initiative would also go a long way towards expanding the Metaverse's burgeoning ecosystem – and give the company a strong claim on the market for XR technology in academia.

Considering the scale of the educational system across the US alone, this could prove very profitable for Meta. 

How will the headsets be used?

Meta's university partners will explore a range of applications for its devices. These range from soft skills training for business students at the University of Iowa to medical training in virtual hospital simulations for student nurses at Purdue Global. 

What is the value of immersive technologies in education?

In terms of XR usage in education, there have been some promising statistics so far.

As Meta points out, a recent study by PwC has found that "40% of VR learners are more confident in applying what they've been taught, and 150% more engaged during classes".

Meanwhile, in Georgia, Morehouse College – one of the first few facilities to bring VR into its classrooms – reported seeing average final test scores of 85 for its VR learners. This is up from 78 for students who attend traditional classroom lessons. The college also claims to have witnessed an overall increase in student engagement and attendance. 

There are undoubtedly plenty of educational benefits to immersive technologies – many of the world's most successful businesses are already using XR training methods, for instance.

As well as being used to create virtual scenarios for students to practise practical and soft skills, XR in education would also potentially benefit less-advantaged students, giving them equal opportunities to access more "hands-on" experiences in environments that otherwise wouldn't be possible.

Some potential challenges 

There are, however, a few unanswered questions about the readiness of Meta's project – most of which are coming from the teachers themselves.

Some educators have expressed concerns about data protection and how Meta plans to implement suitable safeguarding for the teachers and students involved in the pilot. Others are hesitant about the practicalities of a mass rollout of headsets and worried about how they'll govern the usage of the devices. 

President of global affairs at Meta, Nick Clegg, has acknowledged that "it can be, at the moment, a little cumbersome for a teacher to have 12 to 15 headsets which all have to be personally configured and logged on". He also admitted that the company was "not firing on all cylinders yet" in supplying the tech to educational departments.

How Meta got to this point

Meta has already made moves into academia on a smaller scale in Europe – and so far, its efforts have seen promising results.

This heightened focus on education seems like a smart move from Meta. If executed well, then it's likely to be a fruitful avenue for the company that could also boost the number of Quest users and Metaverse adopters.

Educational Quest apps

In its announcement, Meta made sure to note the considerable number of education-related apps already available to their Quest range. These cover topics like STEM, history and language. 

It also announced plans to trial dedicated educational areas in its stores, which should help "parents, teachers and students more easily find age-appropriate education content". 

Expand Reality is a specialist supplier of XR technology, including augmented, assisted and virtual reality wearables. We're dedicated to helping companies unlock the benefits of XR and stay at the forefront of digital transformation.

If you're looking to incorporate immersive learning into your organisation and want to make the most of XR's potential for training and development, then why not browse our range of devices? Alternatively, speak to a member of our team – we'll be happy to help you determine the best hardware and software mix for your needs.