Education is vital for a new invention, learning from the past, mastering a new skillset and cherishing technologies with a better understanding of life. Incorporating the Metaverse in the education curriculum is to create a value addition programme, making learning easy and fun. Metaverse is a vast array of physical aspects of life restored and curated to form an augmented-virtual reality with the help of data science, artificial intelligence, and machine learning.

Metaverse is the dawn of the 5G era. Neil Stevenson’s novel ‘Snow Crash’ mentioned about a parallel imaginary world called Snow Crash. With the advancement in technology, it cruised its way from an imagination to an accessible feature, used for the betterment of gaming and movie experience. Now, the time has arrived when metaverse will revolutionise the mode of education for the coming generation. A person can see and feel the imagination through the VR accessory (VR goggles) and enhance the learning experience through a comprehensive iteration of the existing technology.

The ever increasing prospect of Metaverse application in the education system has increased the interest of investors in ed-tech startups. Five of the attributes of Metaverse that can bring a drastic change in the education system are mentioned herewith.

Data Science

The Metaverse will be capturing a mass amount of data, which it will mine and act almost immediately. While the Metaverse is based on distributed technology like blockchain, the ability to ensure the data captured at one part of the Metaverse is reflected in the user’s experience in another. Hence, study on the next generation of data engineering becomes a key trend of education in the world of Metaverse. To adequately prepare for the Metaverse, it should be ensured that the data science approach is simple, modern and effective to make sense of the new world.

Comprehensive study

It is imperative to understand that education is incomplete if students are not well-versed with the facts and they should be good at social understanding, interaction with teachers and peers without falling prey to fears and negative complexes. Metaverse has blessed the education system with experiential learning tools and a comprehensive mode of delivery for better understanding of the scientific and non-scientific topics in academic curriculums. It broadens the human perception of the subjects and helps better understand the STEM subjects, i.e., science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

There are ample number of theories and concepts which are hard to understand for many students. Unfortunately, it is bizarre to have an incomplete understanding of the subjects. Metaverse provides a proper understanding of the concepts with the help of augmented reality and Big Data, bringing theories and facts while and staging immensely realistic situations to help deal with evident challenges.

Improve social interaction

Covid-19 brought life to a halt, and students missed their classroom learning for almost three years; although there were online classes, they lacked the idea of social interaction and a better understanding of the subjects. Metaverse will be helpful to fill up the lacuna by offering a virtual reality experience. It provides a wholesome environment to change traditional learning methods with a true holographic character coming to life. Students can interact with anyone from the comfort of their home; it would give them the confidence to improve their social communication skills, build networking and get access to the virtual feeling of being in a class while being at home.

Enter the playful learning

Metaworld brings past into the present, brings imagination to life and has been extensively used in the gaming world to change the overall experience by mixing digital information with artificial intelligence. The AI supported programmes could bring playful learning to education. Students learn more in an engaging or lively environment, and some have eidetic memory based on experiencing real-life situations; this would help improve students’ learning aptitude. Imagine a scene where a student of the present era is sitting along with Newton and the apple falls on his head, leading to the discovery of gravity. Cases like this and the complex equations of maths and physics could be explained with virtual display of live examples.

Entering the web3 world

Understanding blockchains and crypto-driven society require a proper education for the coming generation. The human immersion in virtual and augmented reality has made it possible to enter and feel the anticipated world and create a social life in a parallel universe. The world has adapted to the significance of cryptocurrency and the NFTs, and students need to be well-taught about the concept of this decentralised world. What else could be better to students than Meta education to give them knowledge of the web3 world and prepare them for a smart future.

The Metaverse is a futuristic concept which will be mimicking the physical world using technologies such as virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), artificial intelligence (AI), social media, crypto technology, blockchain, among other. However, it will comprise enormous data and a deep understanding of data science will also play a pivotal role in determining how organised the world of Metaverse will be.