Meta partners with Scottish university to test VR technology

Meta has partnered with the University of Glasgow to test a virtual reality (VR) education platform which is poised to transform learning.

The Glasgow institution is one of more than a dozen US and UK universities which will work with the tech firm as part of its new Meta for Education beta programme.

The cohort of universities will test and provide feedback on the new education applications of Meta’s Quest devices, which are VR headsets, ahead of their official launch, which the tech company's website says will be this winter.

The new platform will allow teachers to access a range of education-specific apps and features, and aims to make learning more enjoyable and effective, covering a range of subjects such as science, medicine, history, and language arts.

It hopes to provide immersive experiences that deepen learning and understanding such as field trips to distant museums and risk-free hands-on training.

Other UK universities involved in the project include Imperial College London and the University of Leeds.

“This moment is greater than any one institution or one company. We need to come together in collaboration across the creators, the developers, educational institutions, research organizations, and tech companies to build this new learning ecosystem because it’s going to benefit every individual and industry," says Monica Arés, executive director of Imperial IDEA Lab at Imperial College London. 

“We’re finally at a place where we have a way to combine the digital and physical worlds, and it’s unlocking this entirely new set of tools, which is what makes all of this so exciting.”

Previous Meta research indicates that VR can improve learning outcomes, with Morehouse College, which is one of the US partners, seeing attendance rates increase 10 per cent points and student achievement and grades rising by 11 per cent.

The tech firm also linked immersive technologies to higher levels of empathy and engagement as well as “new forms of connection”.

“The first time I put on a headset, it was immediately apparent to me that this is not like a screen or TV,” said Kim Grinfeder, professor at the University of Miami. 

“It had a completely different feeling. We were creating experiences. I immediately recognized this as a tool that’s going to change education—change the way we teach. It allows us to bring the world into the classroom.”

The new platform comes less than a year after the University of Glasgow partnered with Meta to launch a white paper highlighting the benefits and challenges immersive technologies can bring to education.

The report called on government to “attend to the power” of Extended Reality (XR) technology before “widespread adoption takes hold” and to support research to inform strategy and regulation on the sector.

The Scottish institution has already integrated immersive technologies in some of its teaching. In its life sciences department it is placing students inside virtual intestines so they can see how the body battles bacteria.