Meta For Education Brings Immersive VR Experiences To Any Classroom

Virtual and mixed reality are transforming how students learn. From exploring the insides of a Roman battlefield and dissecting a human heart in 3D to walking on the surface of Mars, VR/MR technologies enable the creation of immersive experiences that enhance learning beyond what is possible in the physical world. In April 2024, Meta announced its development of a new educational offering for Meta Quest headsets, aimed at providing teachers, trainers, and administrators access to a range of education-specific apps and features. In November 2024, the Meta for Education beta program launched with over a dozen colleges and universities across the US and UK. As of today, Meta for Education is widely available, offering schools and universities a complete VR/MR learning ecosystem. By combining powerful management tools with a rich catalog of educational apps, Meta is transforming the classroom into a gateway to worlds previously out of reach.

Meta For Education – A Big Step Forward

In October 2021, Meta, formerly Facebook, rebranded with a bold vision for the metaverse, signaling a deep commitment to immersive experiences. While the popular perception may be one of retreat from the initial bold vision, the education team has been working to validate the vision for virtual, augmented, and mixed reality to enhance education. “Ambitious projects involve false starts and iteration,” says Nick Clegg, Meta’s President of Global Affairs. “We tend to develop tech first, then refine it alongside users to make it fit.”

In the case of Meta for Education, this iteration has been conducted across over a dozen universities in the United States and the United Kingdom over the past few years, with educators from numerous institutions imagining how the tools could be used and then iterating with the Meta technical team on the development of the product. Clegg adds, “The development happens because the companies on the outside are pulling as hard as the team on the inside is pushing.”

Meta For Education – Showing Promising Results

Quinn Taber, CEO and Founder of Immerse, is particularly enthusiastic about Meta for Education. Having used VR for language instruction since 2018, Taber calls Meta’s latest advancements game-changing. “The organic interest has always been there,” Taber says, “but the quality of the solution is only now coming into play.” A deployment that involved managing technical challenges around headsets, controllers, and software and that frequently involved sending a technician to a site. Now, it is as easy as unboxing the hardware and installing an application. The educator can focus on providing their service and associated software while leaving the backend details to Meta.

Immerse’s classes harness VR for foreign language instruction. Students gather in a virtual space that facilitates contextual learning, such as meeting in a virtual sporting goods store and learning how to shop and navigate the environment. The user response has been remarkable. Companies whose previous (pre-VR) attempts at deploying language instruction software had averaged 15 minutes a week saw average weekly usage jump to 225 minutes per week, with significant gains in learning results.

Tom Merrick, Assistant Director of VR/AR Initiatives at the University of Miami, discussed students’ reactions to VR. “In classrooms, where some sessions are in person and others in VR, no one misses the VR sessions,” Merrick says. Students find interacting in VR very natural. He describes a class session where the instructor arrived late to discover the students chatting about where they were from. The general sentiment of those in the VR environment is that they feel present with each other in a way they do not during a regular video call.

This sense of presence has been harnessed through an initiative called “First Year Directions.” This program has existed for some time and is designed to teach incoming students how to maximize their college experience. The University of Miami has now created a digital twin of the campus, which allows students to explore the campus in VR before their arrival. Of particular interest is the ability to offer students signature campus experiences, such as running through the tunnel onto the field with the football team, engaging in glass blowing, and sailing on Biscayne Bay – activities that have long defined campus life but are not accessible to all students.

Meta for Education Using VR To Boldly Go Where You Couldn’t

Meta’s team stressed that VR will not be better for everything. Instead, three key features make a compelling use case for VR:

• Go where you otherwise couldn’t – from a journey to the Acropolis to a trip to Mars.
• Do what would be impossible in reality – explore 3D structures, perform simulated surgeries, or conduct physics experiments in zero gravity.
• Experience new perspectives – embody different viewpoints, such as what it feels like to be a bat or a historical figure in a recreated setting.

If any of these features occur, you have a potentially compelling use case. The more features that are present, the stronger the case becomes.

When asked about the potential for students to distract themselves in the environment, such as whether they could bring virtualized mobile phones into a VR session and spend their time doom-scrolling instead of engaging as intended, Tom Merrick says, “Of course, there are ways to distract yourself inside VR – but they are more difficult and require more effort to pull people out of focus – the focus is higher in VR.” Clegg adds that educators can design the environment however they choose. “Done well, the result is emancipation for the student while providing control for the instructor. Such spaces are immersive and absorbing, but still highly controlled by the educator,” he says. This ability to pull students deeper into their studies promises to enhance engagement, a commodity often in short supply. Indeed, reports from universities participating in the beta phase of Meta for Education indicated an 87% increase in student engagement.

Meta for Education Safeguarding User Privacy

VR systems gather more comprehensive learner data than traditional applications, which raises privacy concerns and creates a need to protect this data for only authorized purposes. In addressing this issue, Meta has adopted a privacy-first strategy. Students aged 13-17 can only access the program without an account login. Nick Clegg emphasized Meta’s commitment to transparency and privacy. While app providers can integrate user performance data into their platforms, Meta does not utilize student data for personalization as such; it only employs it to provide services and for security, safety, and legal compliance purposes.

Meta For Education Is Now Widely Available

Educational institutions can purchase Meta for Education online. The management software is free when an institution buys a new device, and a yearly subscription fee is available for those who wish to purchase it separately.

Meta for Education holds great promise for the future of education and how students engage with knowledge by introducing immersive and interactive experiences into classrooms. Early results are encouraging: higher engagement, improved retention, and an educational experience that resembles an adventure rather than a lecture. Meta is lowering barriers to widespread VR adoption by providing an integrated system with managed services. The real question is not whether VR will play a role in education but how soon it will become an essential part of it.