Re-shaping Post-COVID-19 Teaching and Learning: A Blueprint of Virtual-Physical Blended Classrooms in the Metaverse Era

Abstract

During the COVID-19 pandemic, most countries have experienced some form of\nremote education through video conferencing software platforms. However, these\nsoftware platforms fail to reduce immersion and replicate the classroom\nexperience. The currently emerging Metaverse addresses many of such limitations\nby offering blended physical-digital environments. This paper aims to assess\nhow the Metaverse can support and improve e-learning. We first survey the\nlatest applications of blended environments in education and highlight the\nprimary challenges and opportunities. Accordingly, we derive our proposal for a\nvirtual-physical blended classroom configuration that brings students and\nteachers into a shared educational Metaverse. We focus on the system\narchitecture of the Metaverse classroom to achieve real-time synchronization of\na large number of participants and activities across physical (mixed reality\nclassrooms) and virtual (remote VR platform) learning spaces. Our proposal\nattempts to transform the traditional physical classroom into virtual-physical\ncyberspace as a new social network of learners and educators connected at an\nunprecedented scale.\n