Around the world, countless companies and groups are already reaping the benefits of extended reality technology. We’ve discovered how valuable the right XR tools can be in collaboration and communication, and how they can help innovators to build new products and ideas.
One of the areas where XR is seeing the most significant and rapid adoption, is in the world of education and training. Here, universities, schools, and training companies are embracing the experiential benefits of immersive XR technology to deliver lessons like never before. The result is better knowledge retention, more engagement from students, and broader reach.
Today, we’re going to be looking at some of the most inspirational case studies from the educational landscape, highlighting the benefits of XR for training.
Meta Oculus and Aptiv
Global technology leader Aptiv is best-known for offering a wide range of technologies designed to make vehicles safer, and more intelligent. In 2019, the company started a new initiative to bring “Lean Six Sigma” processes to the entire Aptiv supply chain. Turning to the Leadership Network, and leveraging the power of Oculus for Business, Aptiv achieved phenomenal results.
With the Oculus Quest headset, Aptiv has been able to reduce in-person training times significantly, with most courses now only taking between 4 hours and 2 days. What’s more, the company can also manage training sessions from afar, ensuring team members can continue to develop their knowledge and skills regardless of where they are in the world. According to Aptiv, even people who had never touched a virtual reality headset before were still able to take part in the training.
HTC Vive and Penn State
According to Penn State, immersive technologies are a powerful tool in delivering the right level of training and guidance to students in today’s modern world. As an innovator in the educational environment, Penn State created the “Centre for Immersive Experiences”, where students can engage with powerful lessons about climate change and forest management.
The technology gives students an insight into the potential impact climate change can have on the world, by allowing them to explore environments affected by the climate. Through virtual reality, students can also learn more about how water flows through soil, affecting plants, air and humans in a multitude of ways. With the help of the HTC Vive environment, Penn State has been able to create a comprehensive environment for training and educational immersion.
Microsoft HoloLens and GE
GE Healthcare handles the process for manufacturing most of its complicated medical equipment in China. Maintaining these crucial tools and equipment requires service engineers to undergo intensive training and certification processes. The training focuses on keeping employees safe, while ensuring devices and technology can continue to work correctly.
Working with Microsoft, GE decided to upgrade its training experience to introduce a Mixed Reality educational environment via Microsoft HoloLens 2. The mixed reality experience has enhanced training efficiency, while improving knowledge retention among students. It also ensures GE can deliver training to employees anywhere in the world, provided they have access to a headset.
Unity and the University of Miami
The University of Miami built their state-of-the-art “XR Garage” program for students to help them learn how to create real-time 3D, virtual, and augmented reality content. To get the project off the ground, the learning facility turned to Unity. According to the team, it was crucial to adopt technology that was intuitive, with a low barrier to entry for both faculty and students.
In the XR Garage, a team of 15 students and professional staff can collaborate, experimenting with interactive design, creative coding, and unique XR instructional aids. The XR Garage even built a visualisation solution where students in the healthcare environment can view holograms of a patient’s spine during surgery. Students and educators can share 3D models from different environments, and users can collaborate on education in XR.
Magic Leap and the University of Washington
Faced with the unpredictable challenges of the pandemic, the University of Washington decided it was time to augment their remote teaching curriculum with new collaborative tools in the XR environment. Most years, the students in the AR/VR capstone project would previously meet together to work collaboratively on an AR or VR application. Unfortunately, when the pandemic hit, the students weren’t able to meet in person at all.
Using Magic Leap technology, the University of Washington allowed students to access a virtual environment where they could develop powerful tools, while collaborating in an XR space. Although UW had used AR and VR technology in the classroom before, Magic Leap’s technology allowed the group to use the XR environment “as” the classroom, so classes could continue even when students weren’t able to meet in person.
Varjo and the Finnish Air Force
Constantly committed to seeking out the most effective methods of training for fighter pilots, the Finnish Air Force is no stranger to adopting new technologies. As demand on pilots has increased in recent years, with new and more complex vehicles emerging in the market, the need for a more immersive form of training has become clear. To develop a new training system, the Finnish Air Force worked alongside Patria and Varjo to build a new environment.
Now, pilots can train in an environment where physical simulators, live aircrafts, and computer modelling are all combined. The system allows users to train either side-by-side, individually, or even compete against eachother as they learn. With Varjo’s help, the Finnish Air Force has been able to implement mixed and virtual reality training into their educational environment, to safely deliver the skills today’s students need.
HTV VIVE, Unreal, and Nowa Era
Chemistry is an important tool in discovering and understand how the world works. It’s also a vital learning environment for people who want to pursue scientific endeavours. Unfortunately, countless educational facilities struggle to build the safe and secure learning environments students need to experiment with chemistry themselves.
Nowa Era may have found a solution. Using the VIVE Cosmos VR headset, the group built the Empiriusz Virtual Lab. This experience allows anyone to put on a headset and carry out experiments in complete safety, rather than simply watching someone else carry out a process. With Unreal Engine technology, Nowa Era was even able to recreate accurate colours and chemical reactions, so students can develop the skills they need to carry out experiments in real-life, in an immersive setting.
