Traditional education is about sitting passively in a classroom and listening to the teacher. It is not always this way – after all, many traditional schools do offer labs, art, music etc. – but we’re pretty sure anyone would agree that in a traditional education setting, the vast majority of the student’s time is spent in a passive mode.
Which is why we dislike traditional education and were looking to do something better – we wanted to find a way to allow students to be creative, to explore, to create – while learning. In other words, we wanted to see students immerse themselves in the material in many different ways and learn through experiencing rather than through passive listening.
Immersive education is about immersing students in a rich, complex curriculum that allows them to learn by participating in a wide range of engaging activities. Of course, immersive education doesn’t have to be about technology!
There are many ways to immerse students, as many homeschooling parents know quite well. We immerse our children when we take them outside to the playground and allow them to throw a ball down the slide and see what happens (gravity!). We immerse our students when we let them build with blocks and find out which structures are stable and which are not. We immerse children in art when we take them to the museum, to the library and to the children’s theater.
There are countless ways to teach by immersion. Certainly one of them is using the wonderful tools that technology offers to immerse, experience, and create.
When kids use technology, and especially 3D technology to learn, they immerse themselves in their virtual surroundings. They get to play, create, discuss, collaborate and build, all while assuming a unique 3D personality via their avatar. The beauty of 3D immersive education is that it uses technology to free students from physical limitations such as location or special needs and allows them to truly immerse themselves in the material.
