The emergence of Virtual Reality in online trainings

When using Virtual Reality (VR) you immerse the users of an online training in a duplicated or imagined world. You place the users virtually in a different reality: a different place, a different time or even a completely different world.

VR is advancing, and it’s also increasingly implemented in online trainings. This isn’t surprising. VR-headsets become more affordable, comfortable and advanced. Which makes it more and more logical to implement VR solutions into your learning hub.

When you look at a learning module via the VR-headset, it feels as if you truly experience the displayed situation and you really perform certain actions. In fact, your brain also interprets it this way. The trust and retention of the users are hereby increased. This makes VR an effective training tool.

Safe learning in a virtual environment

Participants of a training have the freedom to make mistakes and to learn by ‘performing’. All of this in a safe and virtual environment. VR has almost limitless possibilities to gain experience. Imagine, you want to improve your public speaking skills. Using VR you can have a virtual debate on a stage in front of an audience of hundreds of people or more.

When simulating an experience in real life is very expensive or a potential mistake could be catastrophic, VR offers the solution. Future surgeons can for example practice without really having to perform their operations. Quite a safe idea, right?

Motivation and involvement

Your users will be optimally motivated and involved within a VR-environment in your online training. When watching a desktop or another application there’s still plenty of room for distraction. In a VR-environment you’ll completely immerge into the virtual situation.

VR is lifelike. People prefer to learn with other people. Your brain can hardly tell the difference between a VR-environment and a real situation. Practicing a customer conversation, for example, will thus not feel simulated. This also makes it easier to apply everything you’ve learned and practiced to daily practice.

Compelling gamification

Gamified online trainings are very effective to make learning interesting and fun. Using VR you can take this to an even higher level. Using VR technologies, users can for example earn tangible badges and rewards when they complete a module successfully. In compelling videogames your users will follow various paths, depending on their achievements and possible mistakes.

Feedback and analyse

VR-software makes it possible to record the achievements of your users and to keep record of the final results. As soon as a user has completed a module, they can replay this. Imagine, an important step of the process has been skipped, or something didn’t go correctly, this can easily be solved using the VR-software. You can show the user how they can perform the step correctly and then let them perform it.

VR technologies in an online learning hub make the collecting of data much more advanced. Via the eye contact of the users you can identify their interests in various modules. This gives a detailed insight that can help developing online trainings with an optimal involvement and improved learning experience.

There's a downside

There are thus plenty of advantages to using VR, but what are the disadvantages? Are there any? Yes, there are some attention points. However VR becomes more affordable, the total costs are at the moment still quite a bit higher than those of a conventional online training.

Another important attention point is privacy. Collecting data for a VR-environment cannot be infringe the privacy laws. Moreover, the storage of the collected data must also be super safe.

Bottomline is that the use of VR in online trainings can progress very quickly. We follow the developments closely and will keep you updated in our blogs.

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