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I remember the sudden wave of euphoria that took over my classroom when the professor broke the monotony of classroom teaching with outdoor play. But, even when I was out and about, the nerd in me used to dream of books. Had VR classrooms been a thing back then, I'd be delving into cosmic physics while playing basketball.
Traditional classroom teaching came to a halt not because students had less learning potential but because of the never-ending chain of study monotony.
As we step into a cutting-edge web 3.0 immersive age, we have a huge opportunity to channel digitization into a VR classroom experience to accelerate learning proficiency, rate of cognition, and student excellence. But how is it done? What are the hardware and software investments to run a VR classroom? Let's have a look.
A VR classroom is a virtual reality-enabled classroom where students can interact with their curriculum in 3D. Instead of reading and classwork, students can be transposed to different locations and learn visually with VR headsets and VR applications. Teachers can guide students in virtual places by outlining markers at different positions and meeting students at a specific point.
Apart from investing in new-age VR headsets with less latency, more coverage and high-resolution camera trackers, creating an immersive digital pedagogy with VR visualization software or AR visualization software is the main fuel behind a VR experience.
For a VR experience to function correctly, a school needs to make a checklist of investments. Cost-effective headsets (like Meta Quest 2, Merge) that cost under $100, wearable VR glasses, bulk VR storage, and less expensive smartphones are necessary to make an environment VR-friendly.
Teachers must be trained in deploying VR software, bulk downloading VR apps, and setting up VR headset configurations for students. Instead of opening their books or paying attention to the blackboard, students would plug in their VR systems and interact with different concepts in 3D.
For students to learn VR in the classroom, a teacher must set the stage in a virtual environment. The entire experience needs to be uninterrupted, high-quality, and responsive. Scrutinizing the components of VR hardware and tethering it to VR software in real time helps map out a 3D environment.
To make the space perform better, these components need to be ready.
VR headsets are strap-on headsets students mount on their heads to enter a virtual universe. VR content is displayed on the screen of a smartphone, which is attached to stereoscopic lenses, cameras, and input trackers to create an illusion of an immersive environment.
VR headsets have positional trackers that let you move forward, backward, right, or left. Any action taken while wearing the headset becomes the action the students’ digital avatars emulate on screen.
Before you hit the market and shudder at expensive and hardware-intensive VR headsets, save that headache by referring to the top VR headsets that are popular among educational institutions today:
For schools that cannot afford expensive headsets, smartphones can be an easy way to keep up with VR technology. Smartphones support VR content and are readily available. Educational institutions place bulk orders for smartphones and integrate them with Google Cardboard, Merge Cube, and VR eyeglasses to show VR lesson plans to students.
Students in STEM can learn from the VR curriculum by interacting with 3D components, model spare parts, engine components, and geometric shapes.
The VR collaboration tool is immersive software that enables teachers and students to access, interact with, and manage remote locations from a central location. It gives the same feeling as a “walk-in” visit to a particular place. If a person is interested in learning more about space tech, a VR collaboration tool can place them inside the space galaxy and help them learn about celestial bodies.
By aligning lesson plan content with VR applications, teachers amplify the traditional classroom experience and empower students to learn more skills.
With this software, you can also conduct virtual meetups, parties, and informal gatherings where students visit a venue through their avatars and interact with others. The transitions behind each VR environment are quick and low-latent, so students don’t feel the difference between physical and virtual worlds.
With the huge bandwidth of VR software and hardware comes the innate need to store and manage VR data. VR storage for hardware systems consumes a lot of physical space, leading to the need for VR warehouses. With limited storage capacities, schools often struggle to store VR gear.
Large containers store VR glasses, VR headsets, and other motion controllers that students need. But, for VR software, hybrid cloud storage on a standard LAN connection becomes an issue. As the lesson plans and school data are private to the school servers, a need for database backup or VPN service providers arises to maintain data integrity.
To support VR, a school must peer ahead of standard network providers. Local area network (LAN) or mobile network providers seldom maintain high-speed connections. Poor connectivity is a common consequence of standard routers that a school uses. Replacing them with high-speed wireless routers can improve VR quality, quicken scene transitions, and eliminate latency in the virtual ecosystem.
Apart from VR headsets, other gear like motion controllers, gloves, and room trackers also aid in providing a 3D immersion. Maintenance of all these devices costs a fortune, so VR hasn’t been expensive yet.
By aligning academic curriculum with VR content, schools give students room to grow digitally and academically. This propels the students forward and opens pathways to newer forms of learning.
The only difference between the traditional curriculum and the VR curriculum is that students don’t have to cram content from their books. The entire learning experience is through digital technology.
Students come to learn important concepts by interacting with them in person. With VR, their lesson plans are visualized through 3D projections. Students can travel to different places, explore monuments, and interact with others through 360° videos.
The tech-powered scenario leaves a lasting impression on the students, and 3D content helps them remember the important dates and events that took place in yesteryears.
Adding gamified elements to digital VR visuals is another way of improving student engagement. Putting creative animations, gamified rewards, or creative user interfaces that give "eureka" moments to your learners or professionals can take your proficiency up a notch.
Some educational institutions have also invested in launching quizzes, polls, contests, and olympiads with gamification in VR classrooms to prevent learners from getting diverted and degrading their own performance. With high-resolution, interactive, and 3D gamified experiences, there is always more to the student's expectations than what meets their eye.
Why limit the learner's experience to indoor premises? Offering VR excursions is a great way to combine the 2D and 3D atlases and empower your learners to experience new places and relish the experience of exploring new cities without the requirement of a tour guide or even money.
Virtual Reality excursions not only spike the fun element but also offer a massive room for learning. Putting these new VR environments and overlaying annotations that describe the essence of those places in detail can curate an experiential learning scenario for students and enable them to feed their curiosity with the curriculum.
Sometimes, working with VR can even be dangerous. As the person remains immersed in a virtual space, they might be unaware of where they are going in the real world.
Augmented reality is different from virtual reality. With AR, students can experience 3D objects in the real world. It uses object detection techniques to detect, identify, and label objects and overlay content on top of them. The use cases of AR in education surpass VR, as AR requires half the amount of hardware and software knowledge compared to VR.
Students who once shuddered at learning bookish concepts get excited to mount a headset and experience new ideas. It acquaints them with their studies and the current progress in technology.
Extending immersive tech to schools has had mixed outcomes. While some schools are on board with incorporating VR into the curriculum, others are reluctant about its benefits. A few areas where VR systems have proven successful are listed below.
VR collaboration platforms allow remote access and management of activities through VR devices. Businesses use them to create virtual chat rooms, metaverses, security and privacy systems, and social networks from a user’s location.
However, given the newness of this technology, deciding on a platform presents a challenge for educational institutions. To create a virtual reality space, first consider your company's software requirements. Then, keep reading to learn more about the top VR tools in 2025.
To be included in this category, software must:
The following data was collected from the G2 Winter 2025 Grid Report in February 2025. Some reviews might be edited for clarity.
VrChat makes it easy to create, modify, and launch 3D immersive experiences via a compatible VR headset or a mixed-reality headset. With an agile virtual ecosystem, users can collaborate, learn, and play virtual games while collaborating with other users, initiating conversations and physical interaction with haptic feedback features and audio sonics.
This platform allows you to take the chat to a genuinely superior level. It is a fantastic increment to the chat scene and more embedded in the world and technology of today. The platform supports both VR and non-VR modes which is great because although it is available to embrace the world of VR it also doesn't exclude those who don't have the equipment yet, providing a unique and immersive social experience to all."
- VrChat Review, Tiago F.
"There is no real filter if you have voice chat activated, which for me is not a problem, but if you have younger people using it, then they could run into all types of conversations, you know?"
- VrChat Review, Bernardo F.
Telia VR Conference provides the ability to build high-resolution and agile virtual environments to simulate real-life scenarios, communicate with peers with 3D audio and video immersion, and create realistic-looking avatars in the metaverse. Telia VR conference also enables you to develop and overlay 3D objects in the physical environment for enhanced learning.
"Meeting in a three-dimensional space instead of a two-dimensional grid makes me more excited. Visualize yourself brushing on a virtual whiteboard with your colleagues or convincing your superiors in a balmy, warm place. In addition, the universal compatibility across devices suggests that everybody will be able to join the fun, regardless of their VR hardware."
Telia VR Conference Review, Asad L.
"I personally feel that the hardware requirements to use this software are a bit more high-end; basic users will not be able to use this software due to hardware constraints, mainly due to the graphic card requirements."
- Telia VR Conference Review, Ashfaq A.
ArborXR provides an integrated development studio and device management platform to monitor and control your AR and VR experiences. With its help, you can adjust and tweak settings in the VR ecosystem and manage the health and steadiness of VR gadgets for a lag-free and high-resolution immersive experience. The centralized dashboard of ArborXR enables you to protect devices, manage screen times, and create and deploy hybrid content to bridge the gaps between the virtual and real worlds.
"One thing I really like about ArborXR is managing the whole VR device portfolio because when you work with different devices, you need to control and manage them properly."
- ArborXR Review, Siraj a.
"My only complaint is that remote viewing isn't available on the Meta headsets, but I understand that this is a limitation imposed by Meta, not a limitation of Arbor."
- ArborXR Review, Steve D.
MeetinVR offers real-time collaborative features to initialize and run VR meetings, design breakout rooms, and replay or rewind the speech of presenters to comprehend and understand the sessions with improved concentration. MeetinVR is a great way to bring remote teams together, create engaging sessions, and have immersive brainstorming sessions to factor in each and every person's opinion on an upcoming idea and strategy. You can also share 3D design prototypes, enable video conferencing, and edit or modify the contents of a common project at the same time.
"MeetinVR integrates with popular productivity tools like Slack and Trello, making it easy to bring work into the virtual environment. We have used similar virtual meeting platforms in the past that did not allow such collaboration and integration."
- MeetinVR Review, Kaitlyn L.
"Online platforms make people discouraged and disconnected. Also, there is a regular need for the internet, and in a space where people seem to use fewer screens, it has increased the screen time"
- MeetinVR Review, Mansi D.
Qbit offers a platform to run glitch-free, high-quality AR and VR content ecosystems with ease. Its seamless and dynamic interface with built-in AI support allows you to sort out your immersive worlds, change themes or layouts, and even sync the virtual world with your headset or other VR gear without a lot of integration or configuration.
"Qbit gives a fluid 3D Augmented Reality experience with a smooth, user-friendly interface, but what truly distinguishes it is the AI support, which adds an extra degree of convenience and makes it stand out from other AR applications on the market."
- Qbit Review, Rupal S.
"Qbit requires a certain level of technical expertise to use effectively. While the software is designed to be user-friendly, quantum computing is a complex field that can be challenging for those who are new to it. As such, users may need to invest some time in learning how to use the software and understanding the underlying principles of quantum computing."
- Qbit Review, Joel B.
Learning takes a toll on students as they pore over weighty books all day. During exams, their stress levels increase. Virtual reality is a majestic realm of technology that makes learning fun, interactive, and creative. The intersection between learning and education will put our world at the forefront of innovation, deep thinking, and fast literacy.
Hop on the VR bandwagon and take a step forward for your brand by exploring the best augmented reality software development kit (AR SDK) and fueling your ROI with low-code efforts.
This article was originally published in 2023. The content has been updated with new information.
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