Meta Wants To Put Students And Teachers In Quest VR Headsets



If Meta has its way, students will tour faraway museums, walk among dinosaurs and view human intestines up close — all from the comfort of their classroom, using Quest, virtual reality (VR) headsets, Axios reported.

Why it matters: As educators grapple with AI and other new tech tools, a deep-pocketed push to turn VR into a classroom staple raises new questions about the future of learning — and what’s best for kids.

According to Axios, the two big companies competing VR/MR (mixed reality) headsets — Meta’s Quest and Apple’s Vision Pro – are heavy, expensive and don’t work for people with some vision impairments.

Plus, there are plenty of VR skeptics who say its much better for kids to communicate and socialize in person without headsets — particularly during school hours.

Meta’s Nick Clegg, President, Global Affairs, posted on the Meta website:

Of all the ways in which metaverse technologies like virtual, mixed, and augmented reality could prove to be transformative, the potential they have for education is one of the most exciting.

For most of us, learning is social — we learn from and with others, and from each other’s experiences. It’s about interaction and discussion as much as it is about absorbing facts. That’s why the unique feeling of presence and immersion these technologies create can be so impactful in education.

They also make things possible that are impossible in the physical world. Instead of telling students that what the dinosaurs were like, they can walk among them. Virtual science laboratories can be built and filled with equipment that most schools would never be able to afford. Classes can go on field trips to the best museums, no matter how far away they are. And they can be used to take the risk out of otherwise dangerous or expensive technical or vocational training…

…To make it easier for educators, later this year Meta will be launching a new product offering for Quest devices dedicated to education, just as last year’s Meta Quest for Business was designed for the workplace. It will allow teachers, trainers, and features, and make it possible for them to manage multiple Quest devices at once, without the need for each device in a classroom or training environment to be updated or prepared individually. This will save teachers time and allow students to pick up the headsets and get started right away — something that educators using our devices have consistently told us they want…

TechCrunch reported on Monday, the company announced in a blog post that later this year it will be launching a new education product for Quest to position its VR headset as a go-to device for teaching in classrooms. The product is yet to be named.

Business models for hardware and services also have yet to be spelled out. With nothing on the table, the company is framing it as a long-term bet.

In my opinion, the Quest devices remind me of the book “Ready Player One”, where the characters used a headset to virtually attend school. The difference is that the students will already be at school. I wonder what the cost of the Quest headsets will be, and how many schools will be able to afford them.