Students feel more at ease speaking a foreign language after emerging themselves in VR classrooms developed by Surreal, a Taiwan-based firm backed by the National Development Council. Andy Peng, the CEO and founder of Surreal, thinks that XR technology would improve the learning of the young generation and foster more innovative talents in Taiwan, with the goal of making education more accessible for students from remote locations.
The educational platform SURREALM, developed by Surreal, intends to provide students with an engaging online learning space where they can feel a sense of community, presence, and playfulness. It mixes emoticons that most students are accustomed to using because they are digital natives to provide feedback. The grouping feature enables students to interact and work together in virtual classrooms as well as freely converse and play during breaks.
SURREALM gives educators the ability to extend the borders of the classroom and utilise their limited time and resources more effectively. To obtain the optimum learning results, teachers can offer the subject in the VR classroom in a variety of ways. The variety of content available to students includes photographs, videos, documents, and audio. Additionally, it offers complete lesson planning, classroom management, and assignment functions, enabling lecturers to effortlessly manage the teaching process.
Teachers and students can both get started quickly because to the user interface’s intuitive design. Teachers can easily grab students’ attention and promote engagement to make sure that knowledge is internalised thanks to the rich content and high level of interactivity. Users can connect with one another in a vibrant Avatar picture in SURREALM to foster closer relationships. The virtual world feature makes it possible to instantly replicate the learning experience. The website allows users to control their own class schedules and access a detailed record of their academic progress, test results, and other information.
In an effort to train metaverse instructors who will alter the way kids learn, Surreal is currently collaborating with the Ministry of Education to develop an experimental education programme. Andy was happy to observe how the Metaverse resources helped children in Kaohsiung’s rural districts who had been reluctant to study English develop an interest in it. The students “suddenly gained the guts to speak English in the metaverse, as if they were drunk.” During the group competition, those kids’ vocabulary dramatically expanded.