THE EXPANDING ROLE OF METAVERSE PLATFORM IN COLLEGE EDUCATION

ABSTRACT

With the widespread of COVID-19 pandemic globally, education environment has been changed from face-to-face to online education with physical distance. The classroom could be moved anywhere from the brick building to ubiquitous place and mobile tools with virtual and augmented reality. The metaverse allows students to fashion a world where they can interact as avatars or digital characters while participating in a host of activities. This paper tries to find the feasibility of applying the metaverse platform in college education in the pandemic environment. A thorough review has been attempted for the state of the art of educational metaverse. Based on the research framework of metaverse platform, two types of implementation have been attempted. The first one is hardware-based extended reality studio for media and broadcasting. The second one is software-based virtual and augmented reality. Using Zepeto, a metaverse classroom is created, and actual activities for teaching and learning have been tried among classroom avatars. By using the metaverse platform in the online education, student’s satisfaction has been increased through active interaction and communication via avatars. © 2022, ICIC International. All rights reserved.