METAHEFO. Project
The educational paradigm is in constant change and evolution.
A few years ago, knowledge was completely controlled by the teacher, who used physical resources for their lectures, including blackboards or physical anatomical models, and the lectures were exclusively in-person.
Later, we have evolved, and a revolution began, generating a large amount of teaching resources, libraries, and virtual repositories in all areas of science. This led to a great growth, creating better resources that were not only in black and white, but also including colors. Also, the possibility to interact, which opened a new range of possibilities, changing the educational paradigm. At that time, students already had the ability to choose the source of information and, with the emergence of asynchronous education, the timing of their learning. However, that didn´t change that we were using flat resources to teach ideas, concepts, or objects that are three-dimensional.
Currently, with the extended reality (XR), we are facing an educational, technological, and social revolution. Extended reality or XR is an abstract concept that includes a set of resources and realities such as: virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), immersive reality (IR), etc.
The possibilities of the Metaverse and VR are multiple and, perhaps, we are not yet able to visualize all the possible dimensions. Some recent systematic reviews already indicated very positive results for its educational use, allowing the following options:
- The student can go to university virtually, without having to physically travel. Other universities are already promoting part of their teaching activities in the Metaverse: VR glasses are given to the students, and they need to use them for some of the activities or practical sessions, all of this from their homes. Also, lectures and researchers can carry out part of their activities without having to physically travel. Furthermore, eliminating travel also saves money, time and partially reduces the ecological impact of the mobility of the entire educational community.
- The virtualization of real-life environments (buildings, companies, laboratories, rooms, etc.) allows us to improve the educational experience. This makes possible that the students become familiar with the environment where they will have to carry out their practical sessions or with their future work environment. These environments can be interactive and with an increasing degree of difficulty to achieve an optimal degree of training as a prior step to activities in the real world. It is hypothesized that this prior training will allow not only improvements in safety and prevention of accidents and unwanted events but will also help reduce students' anxiety and stress.
- Once it is assumed that the Metaverse gives us the opportunity to have a door to a virtual world, where we can carry out academic activity without physically moving, it seems very easy to imagine that this is a shared and collaborative space at a regional, national, European, and global level. Students, teachers, and researchers will be able to work together with colleagues and professionals from various institutions located anywhere since they will really be in their own place, using the VR glasses.
Our proposal is to combine the methodology of Problem-Based Learning (PBL) or Case-Based Learning (CBL) with the methodology and pedagogical foundations of Clinical Simulation (Briefing-Simulation-Debriefing schema) to develop Virtual Clinical Simulation (VCS).
Through Virtual Clinical Simulation, the Metaverse can be expanded with the creation of various clinical cases, creating a case repository, which will be common for all the lecturers to share their sessions.
On the other hand, there are already existing European mobility programs (such as Erasmus+) that include online activities (among others) with students and teachers from different countries.
