The meta-universe is understood to be a virtual reality space where participants can do all the same things they do in the real world (including interacting with other users) using digital avatars. This idea has long occupied minds, but has not yet been fully realized. The authors of the report note three aspects of meta-universes that are significant for education:
- A new space for communication is opening up;
- Many actions are possible that are unrealistic or dangerous in the physical world;
- Realistic simulations allow you to immerse yourself deeply in a recreated environment (e.g. in a different geographical area or even a different era).
There are already examples of virtual spaces where students and teachers can interact on an ongoing basis, but these are still rare. But in education, VR-applications are actively used for narrow individual tasks. These are, for example, simulators of school physics and chemistry laboratories and digital twins of construction, energy, transportation objects in vocational education and develop tasks in which it will be useless.