In November and December, 2020, Tomasz Trochimczuk from Faculty of Engineering Management, Bialystok University of Technology, conducted two online meetings concerning the use of virtual (VR), augmented (AR) and mixed reality (MR) for teachers, youth and children from primary and secondary schools of Podlaskie Voivodeship in Poland.
The first meeting was mostly concerned about VR, AR and MR in modern marketing and it was realized within the framework of the Children’s University of Economics (EUD). EUD is an all-Poland program of economic education, initiated and run by the Foundation for the Promotion and Accreditation of Economic Education in cooperation with local partners. The offer is addressed to children aged 11-13 from elementary schools. The University has been functioning since 2008. EUD is an edutainment event, which means that its basic assumption is to teach through entertainment.
The second webinar was aimed at teachers and high school students from Olecko and it was concerned about application of augmented, virtual and mixed reality in education, engineering and marketing. This online meeting was realized within the project “Key Competences Key to the Future” implemented under the Regional Operational Programme carried out by the Warmińsko-Mazurskie Voivodeship in 2014-2020.
The topics of applying VR, AR or MR were very interesting for teachers, children and youth. The webinar participants willingly took part in the discussion. They shared interesting ideas about using these technologies in lessons, classes and trainings.
Virtual, augmented and mixed reality creates new, unprecedented opportunities to enrich lessons and trainings by an attractive and very effective form of knowledge transfer and competence education. Thanks to these technologies, during lessons we will be able, for example, to take a space trip and thus get to know the universe. Together with the teacher and classmates we will be able to go on a virtual journey on elephants to Africa. By traversing the savannah, forests and steppes of the ends of the Sahara, we will learn about the fauna, flora and customs of the tribes that inhabit this wonderful continent. It is also possible to virtually support the training of engineers, scientists, drivers, pilots, technologists and doctors.
By using appropriate, unfortunately still quite expensive technology and effective educational applications, we can make the learning process in schools, at universities and in specialized training much more attractive and faster.
These opportunities are particularly valuable in distance learning and in times of pandemic.
Virtual, augmented and mixed reality is very important in the process of developing modern and innovative methods and tools for education and training.