Immersive Learning Environments at Scale: Constraints and Opportunities

Abstract

The expansion of online education into massive open online courses (MOOCs) and equipment have created a unique opportunity for delivering immersive learning experiences at scale. However, although the inclusivity of the MOOC ecosystem can be commended, many online courses lack key benefits associated with traditional classroom environments: immersive, engaging, and team-driven learning opportunities. Immersive learning environments (ILEs) address these educational gaps but has not been able to operate at the broad scale that MOOCs offer. Importantly, ILEs address opportunities missing from MOOC systems, they add unique learning opportunities that would also be missing in a traditional classroom. The inclusion of this virtual reality technology is pivotal topic for educational research. This theoretical paper will briefly define immersive learning environments and the potential benefits of incorporating immersive learning environments into scalable educational systems. We will also consider developers constraints on creating these online ecosystem and suggested strategies for overcoming them.