CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (WVIR) – At UVA’s Darden School of Business, they are testing out a new area for virtual reality: the classroom.
“How could we create an environment in the metaverse to try and scale experiential learning and case based discussion?,” Anne Trumbore, the Chief Digital Learning Officer at Darden, asked.
That was the question that led to Darden piloting the use of the metaverse for virtual learning.
A normal class has a professor at the front and students sitting in their seats, listening and engaging. But, for Darden’s Executive Program, there’s a professor and a bunch of empty seats.
“It’s an exact replica of the classroom and it’s extraordinarily lifelike, and you can do everything you can do in a classroom,” Trumbore said. “You can share stuff, you can raise your hand, you can talk to other participants.”
Students have two weeks of in-person learning. After that, all they need to do to attend class is put on their goggles and hold their controllers.
“We were participating in the class, raising our hands, that was a little hard to do from time to time,” Erin Hodson, a student in the program, said.
Hodson described her first time in the metaverse like nothing she could have imagined.
“I was a little bit shaky about what this was going to be like, and kind of just thought it would be fun,” Hodson said. “But now I’m seeing many different applications that you could use for a business perspective where there is an actual need.”
Hodson mentioned that there are some tweaks to be made still.
“Someone mentioned taking notes might be challenging because you can’t see what’s in front of you,” Hodson said.
But overall, there was a feeling of excitement to what possibilities class in the metaverse could hold.
“You can do things that you can’t do in a classroom,” Trumbore said.
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