The AR, VR, and MR market is growing fast and it is expected that its size will grow up to $220 billion by 2021. Almost all fields are already using mixed reality, and an educational field is not the exception.

Many IT companies offer mobile app development services with AR/VR capabilities both for educational purposes and other ones. Let’s go deeper in the world of VR/AR in education and single out all the benefits of using these technologies for learning.

Mixed reality in education: its potential

Recently AR and VR were not the technologies that you should use in education, but everything is changing. In fact, mixed reality modifies education field drastically, it helps people improve their learning process and gain new experience faster.

Many companies develop educational apps that enhance educational processes, but virtual reality and augmented reality make this process much better.

Start with AR

Augmented reality is a preferable option for educational apps since it is more convenient to use. AR apps don’t require you to use special hardware like VR helmets or glasses. And the educational process just turns into a game.

Everything you need to use AR apps is a smartphone or a tablet. AR educational apps have the following benefits:

• Paper textbooks sink into oblivion. Try to force children to read a common textbook or play a game? I bet you know the answer. An app is much more interesting for kids and they will learn faster.
• No costly hardware. As we noted above, no helmets/glasses and other equipment are required. Besides that, AR native app doesn’t need the Internet connection, it may work offline.
• Deeper engagement. Students can immerse in the learning process and study everything in a more quality way. Colorful objects, 3D pictures are capturing much more attention.

As a result, AR opens new doors for students. But let’s speak more in details about the benefits of mixed reality in education.

Advantages of VR/AR in education

Strong sides of mixed reality are obvious and we will highlight them:

Engagement goes deeper

Especially it concerns a virtual reality. Just imagine, you wear a helmet and you can immerse in the digital world of history, geography, medicine, and so on. When you read a book, everything depends on your mind, but virtual reality gives you an opportunity to see everything from inside.

Visual thinking is improved

When children listen to teachers and see everything in digital pictures, they understand everything better and they learn it much faster. Besides that, they memorize new data much better and their visual thinking is improved. Everything is visualized, teachers don’t need to draw a picture.

More concern

If you remember, years of learning were rather interesting but rather often it was very boring. Black-and-white pages of textbooks didn’t catch an eye. But virtual or augmented reality makes a real revolution. It changes the attitude of students to the learning processes, they can return to prehistorical days to see dinosaurs, or see how Earth is formed.

Absolute safety

The main advantage is that AR and VR are completely safe for students. Except that it may lead to gaming addiction. But on the whole virtual reality allows students to drive a car, go in for skydiving, do a medical operation and so on. And nobody will be hurt. Everything is only on the screen.

Focusing

Better engagement leads to a more strong focusing on a task. Students pay more attention to the task implementation, they immerse in the process, they learn new material and are not distracted.

Collaboration

Also, virtual reality helps students collaborate and work with a teacher in the digital world. They may work in a team and their task implementation goes more productive.

Today it is not already a sci-fi movie. Some universities and schools in various regions of the world already apply mixed reality in educational processes and the result is amazing.

Available AR&VR projects

As there are many apps for VR and AR are already created, but some of them gained serious popularity, and we would like to pay attention to them.

Nanome

It is a virtual reality app that is created for chemists and everyone who is interested in this science. You can work with proteins and other cells on a molecular level. It may seem that you become so small that you can work with nanotechnology and see each cell in front of you.

This software is very cognitive and it may become a real magic wand for young scientists.

Google Tour Creator

It is a web-based tool to build interactive tours wherever you want. Virtual 360 tours can be then viewed in a stereoscopic mode in iOS and Android devices.

Thus, teachers can create their own tours for pupils and students to give them an opportunity to visit any place of the world.

Curiscope

This AR app is sold together with a T-shirt that has a special QR code printed. When you use the app, you can see all internal organs through the screen of a smartphone or a tablet. This app is created for future doctors or any other enthusiasts who are interested in human anatomy.

Why has mixed reality a big future in education?

And, finally, let’s summarize why mixed reality in education prevails.

Gamification rules the world

Nowadays the majority of the world population use digital technologies, they even live there, chat with their friends, play games, watch movies, and so on. And sometimes it is impossible to force them to learn something. Then, why not to combine learning and game playing?

Mixed reality does it. Everybody likes to play. That is why AR and VR revolutionize the world and they change the approach to the organization of educational processes.

Technologies become affordable

Well, the development process of well-thought-out VR or AR app is rather long and costly, it is usually available for people for not a high price.

Besides that, AR apps don’t require expensive hardware, as we already mentioned, so it is a rather affordable way to give students new immersive experience.

Practical benefits

The practice is nothing without theory. Students should know a theory to start practicing. That is why VR and AR software makes it possible for students to learn theory and then practice it in the virtual environment safely. For example, virtual surgery. Medical students can do virtual heart surgery and consider all mistakes they do to avoid them in real life.

So the practical benefits of mixed reality in education are enormous.

Who knows what will be a big thing in the future of MR in the educational field? We are sure that it will deeply come into our lives. You just need to follow the right road!

This article is contributed by Sergey Lypchenko, technical writer at Cleveroad — mobile app development company.

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