As instructional designers, we often aim to create more engaging and immersive ways for our participants to learn new information and skills. As digital learning has increased, so have the options for those looking to utilize its power. Virtual reality and the metaverse are new emerging technology that breaks the walls of the traditional training classroom is virtual reality and the metaverse. If you want to understand the metaverse, it is helpful to think of the current internet we use as a solo 2D experience built on video and flat web pages. In comparison, ‘The Metaverse’ is the marketing term used for the evolution of the internet into a shared 3D social experience in virtual worlds. Learning is a social experience; therefore, the potential of this new medium to unlock unprecedented learner engagement and speed of content acquisition is very exciting.
What’s the difference between ‘virtual reality (VR)’ and the metaverse?
Virtual Reality (VR) is the term used to describe a three-dimensional, computer-generated environment that can be explored and interacted with by a person. That person becomes part of this virtual world or is immersed within this environment. A key component of VR is that when people are immersed in it, they can manipulate objects or perform a series of actions and engage with real and simulated people in actual time.
The Metaverse is a bit more tricky to explain. Since the technology is relatively new, many companies and developers are vying for the right to define exactly what it means when we refer to the “metaverse.” Most developers want it to be a new iteration of the Internet as a single, universal, and immersive virtual world that is facilitated by the use of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality(AR) headsets. Due to limitations around the technology and the ability for companies to collaborate, in reality, it is more like a network of 3D virtual worlds focused on social connection. To learn more about why it is so hard to pin down a definition of the metaverse check out this article from WIRED Magazine.
How can smaller companies utilize this emerging technology?
Just like any new technology, the implementation of something new does have financial challenges. As you look at headset options, you might notice the wide range of prices for products on the market. The most critical differences in headsets that justify these prices are the quality of the lenses and the resolution; lower-priced headsets are more than adequate for the average user. Additionally, hardware developers have an interest in offering the headsets at a reasonable cost and supporting them for a minimum of five years to help increase their proliferation in the market. This means that organizations that choose to invest in a small set of $400 headsets now could reasonably expect to use them for five years before they would need to replace them, making them generally affordable for businesses on a budget.
Larger companies will have less difficulty investing in the development of custom training experiences developed by designers to meet their needs, but this doesn’t mean that smaller companies are going to be priced out of the market. I see great potential for paid usage of existing training programs that smaller companies could pay a monthly or annual feed to utilize. Things like meeting spaces and virtual conference rooms or virtual classrooms development are already underway.
How will the metaverse shape training and development opportunities?
When learning about the metaverse I found this quote by WIRED magazine really powerful.
“The paradox of defining the metaverse is that in order for it to be the future, you have to define away the present. We already have MMOs [massively multiplayer online game] that are essentially entire virtual worlds, digital concerts, video calls with people from all over the world, online avatars, and commerce platforms. So in order to sell these things as a new vision of the world, there has to be some element of it that’s new.”
In order for this grand experiment to change the shape of the training landscape we must be willing to acknowledge the existing limitations of current training methods and be flexible and open enough to embrace what might be possible. The simple act of strapping on a headset could allow individuals to learn from experts and gain experiences that wouldn’t otherwise be possible, which leads me to believe that we will see huge increases in the use of VR and the metaverse for training in the near future.