A quick investigation if we are still on track on our drive to use XR in education and training
Introduction
The question “Is XR technology the future of education and training?” has many answers depending on who you ask. The context also matters. The answer to the question in Europe will differ from the answer to the question in South Africa. Which discipline and industry also changes the answer.
I asked the question of Chat GPT.
AIs opinion on the question
Question: Is XR technology the future of education and training?
What XR brings that traditional methods struggle with
- Learning by doing (at scale)
- XR excels where experiential learning matters:
- Medical students practicing surgery without risk
- Electricians, pilots, or engineers training on dangerous equipment
- Teachers rehearsing classroom management scenarios
- This aligns strongly with how people actually learn: active practice beats passive listening.
- XR excels where experiential learning matters:
- Safe failure and repetition
- Learners can:
- Make mistakes without consequences
- Repeat rare or expensive scenarios
- Train for emergencies that are impossible to stage in real life
- That’s a massive advantage for high-risk, high-cost training.
- Learners can:
- Personalised and adaptive learning
- XR environments can:
- Adjust difficulty in real time
- Track attention, movement, and performance
- Give immediate feedback
- This opens the door to competency-based education, not just time-based instruction.
- XR environments can:
Where XR will likely dominate
XR is most likely to become standard in:
- Vocational and technical training
- Healthcare
- Manufacturing
- Mining, aviation, construction
- Military and emergency services
- Higher education and professional upskilling
- Labs and simulations
- Remote collaboration
- Continuing professional development
- Special education and inclusion
- Visualising abstract concepts
- Supporting learners with disabilities
- Language and social-skills training
What the future actually looks like
Rather than “XR replaces classrooms,” expect:
- Blended learning ecosystems
- Traditional teaching for discussion, ethics, and social learning
- XR for practice, simulation, and exploration
- AI tutors for feedback and pacing
- Physical labs when real-world constraints matter
XR becomes a powerful tool, not the foundation.
Bottom line
Yes, XR is a major part of the future of education and training—but only where it genuinely improves learning outcomes. The winners will be systems that:
- Use XR intentionally
- Combine it with good teaching and curriculum design
- Focus on learning impact, not novelty
How does AIs answer compare to practice at UP Faculty of Health Sciences
No my, unedited thoughts.
The strategy at FHS is to slowly build adoption from the bottom up. Within the larger structure it is extremely difficult to get staff to adopt the technology as it requires a change in how they teach. This does not necessarily mean a completely new curriculum, but it does require a rethinking of the focus of the different contact sessions. The detail if this is beyond the scope of this document but the primary take away is that “there is no innovation without change”.
Primarily, all innovations and introduction of new technologies and teaching is done with the following focus:
- Scalability – the hardware and software solution should be scalable. The focus should not be in providing 20 students with a high-fidelity learning experience but rather prepare and provide 400 students with enough experience that the benefit of the limited lab/simulation time is amplified.
- Cost effective – even though development of the XR applications is expensive, they are developed for relatively inexpensive (comparatively) hardware that does not require computers and specialised equipment and environments.
- Repeatable – the completed applications can be used repeatedly and provide consistent learning experiences. This means that even if the hardware the applications are using is old, the applications will still function correctly on the old hardware. This ties in with the issue of scalability as new hardware cannot be purchased every year.
The current applications being developed and deployed at UP FHS focuses on skills taught in the skills lab for many programmes (ECG and Defib) as well as skills that require access to specialised equipment (CT Head and Lab safety). The reason for this is to provide students opportunity to learn by doing and ensure that they do this in a safe, low risk environment. This is parallel with AIs answer around what XR brings to the table that traditional methods struggle with.
The other focus when developing the applications for FHS is to ensure that the applications align with the pedagogy of the specific programme or department and that there is detailed understanding on what the XR application can and can’t do. The development of the application is done in close collaboration with the educators to ensure that these goals are met. We also ensure that XR is only used where it has the largest impact. If VR isn’t the solution, then we don’t use it. Pedagogy > Technology.
The applications are developed as small “bite sized” experiences so they can be made to fit into the different programmes. This is also to ensure that the learner is not overwhelmed due to the high cognitive environment of VR. So instead of having a comprehensive application that covers all surgical skills, we have separate applications for each skill. This provides a break between learning sessions for informal learning and a conceptual break between skills for a continuous formal learning session.
Lastly, the skills we focus on are all skills that require:
- specialised environments or equipment (specialised lab, medical equipment etc)
- practice of the learner to master the skill
- mastering certain actions, rather than interpreting the results of the actions (for example taking a correct ECG will provide good data for interpretation).
Change is a process
To change the way people, teach and how students learn, especially with new technology, requires an understanding of the technology, how it is used within the specific context and the capabilities of the technology.
To mandate change across a whole institution to change to a technology that has a unique solution for every problem will only result in certain groups becoming disillusioned with the technology.
What works for one discipline may not work for another discipline. Finding the right tool for the job is key, but it’s also important that the new tool does a better job than the old tool.
In the end, AI has it right: Use XR intentionally and only when it has a high impact on learning.