The landscape of adult education is undergoing a seismic shift, driven by the relentless march of technology. From the emergence of Generative AI to the realms of Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), and the tantalizing prospects of the Metaverse, these innovative technologies are reshaping how we approach learning in our increasingly digital world.

The New Era of Adult Learning

We live in a world where technology constantly reshapes how we live, work, and communicate—yet, educational methods, particularly for adults, often lag behind. Although Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) like Coursera and Udacity provide accessible learning, they fall short in offering real-world application and retention.

VR provides users with active learning experiences, where they can practice new skills in safe, risk-free environments that mirror real-life scenarios. Let’s explore how VR, along with Augmented Reality (AR) and AI, is creating an evolution in adult learning.

Key Learning Technologies Shaping Adult Education

While VR plays a central role, other emerging technologies contribute to a holistic learning experience:

• Virtual Reality (VR): Provides a fully immersive, practice-based environment ideal for experiential learning. VR enables learners to interact with scenarios as if they were real, promoting deeper engagement and retention.
• Augmented Reality (AR): Overlays digital elements onto the real world, making it excellent for real-time learning that integrates seamlessly with daily life.
• Generative AI: Acts as a creative and analytical support tool, assisting in content creation and customization. AI helps personalize learning paths, enhancing user engagement.

Why VR Transforms Learning

VR offers a range of unique benefits that revolutionize learning for adults:

• Active Learning: VR allows learners to “experience” rather than passively consume content, boosting retention rates by 75-90%.
• Safe Practice Space: Learners can practice high-stakes skills—like public speaking, negotiation, and crisis management—without real-world consequences.
• Confidence Building: VR enables users to learn at their own pace, repeating challenging scenarios until they gain confidence.

Blending MOOCs and VR: The Ideal Learning Combination

While MOOCs provide valuable knowledge, VR complements them by enabling learners to apply this knowledge in realistic settings. Imagine taking an online public speaking course and then practicing in a VR auditorium where you can experience distractions, adjust your body language, and receive real-time feedback.

The ability to practice in VR makes it unique – imagine being able to make mistakes, learn from them, and try again, without any real-world consequences.

This is especially useful for soft skills such as:

• Presentation skills
• Job interview practice
• Sales pitching
• Interacting with the media
• Crisis communications
• Difficult conversation training

VirtualSpeech provide online courses combined with interactive practice exercises and feedback within their VR app, so that students have the most thorough, accessible learning experience possible.

Accessible tools

And most people already own the most expensive tool required for adult learning courses with VR – a smartphone. An estimated 70-75% of adults who need literacy support have access to a smartphone, and that figure is even higher for more complex skills.

This means that millions of people can access high quality learning with a device they already own, and they would just have to purchase a VR headset for as little as $25. This also makes it a more accessible way to learn because adult learners can fit their education around their full-time job, without having to pay thousands of dollars or sacrifice large chunks of their time going to a learning centre.

Discover how the VirtualSpeech platform can help you reach your professional development goals up to 4x faster.

Learn with online classes, practice in VR

We believe VR is the most effective, safe, and affordable way to combine experiential learning with traditional online learning. They form the perfect partnership because many people don’t want to be in the virtual world for long periods of time, and it can be difficult to read text within a VR headset.

That’s why a combination of online tutorials and virtual reality works so well. You can spend 60% of your time learning soft skills with online classes, then 40% actually practicing what you have learnt.

Online tutorials and guides are used to teach techniques and theory, while VR is used to practice and reinforce what has been learnt in the online training course.

Technical vs. soft skills courses

Technical skills courses

There are plenty of amazing resources for learning technical skills online. What’s great with many of them is that you can practice what you’ve learnt through exercises and projects as a more practical way of learning. Sites like Codecademy give you a brief description of a topic and let you reinforce your learning by writing code related to that topic. Thus, you’re effectively learning on the job and more likely to retain the information.

Codecademy lets you learn through practice by coding different projects in the web browser.

Soft skill courses

Business skills such as sales, negotiation and communication, are much harder to improve through practice. You might have to attend an expensive in-person workshop to practice these skills or learn while you’re at work – no doubt making costly mistakes along the way

Traditional business online courses include tutorial videos, articles and quizzes. However, without practicing what you’ve learnt, you’ll have forgotten over 95% of this material after 30 days.

Example: Public Speaking hybrid course

Our public speaking course was designed using years of learning from our VR application. We’ve covered all the essential areas of public speaking with online tutorial videos, case studies, articles, and after learning the fundamentals, participants can practice these topics in virtual reality.

For example, you’ll learn how to cope with common distractions, such as mobile phones ringing, bright stage lighting, and audio feedback through our training videos. Then you’ll put on a VR headset and practice what you’ve been taught while giving a speech in a virtual conference room.

The content is split between traditional videos, quizzes etc, and VR practice:

Traditional learning (online classes)

• Tutorial videos
• Articles
• Quizzes
• Case studies
• Role play exercises

VR practice

For the public speaking course, we focussed on several VR scenarios to enhance the online classes:

• Eye contact training and connecting with the audience
• Sound and visual distractions training
• Impromptu speeches and thinking on the spot
• Speech insight analysis
• Speaking in a lecture hall
• Answering audience questions

Future of adult learning

As VR and other immersive technologies evolve, they hold the potential to reshape education on a large scale. Imagine a world where prestigious courses and hands-on training are available virtually to anyone, anywhere. VirtualSpeech is committed to leading this change, harnessing VR’s transformative power to create accessible, effective, and engaging learning experiences that support learners’ professional and personal growth.

Discover how VirtualSpeech can accelerate your learning journey by 4x—experience the future of learning today.