Versatilist with Carlos Ochoa Fernandez Podcast.

New technologies are an emerging industry creating employment opportunities and entrepreneurial possibilities. Virtual reality and augmented reality represent incredible areas of opportunity. VR failed to live up to the wildest promises when the new VR systems launched in 2015. But the number of job postings for VR and AR have risen 93% since 2015, with 17% of that growth happening in the past year.

According to projections set out by the European Commission, market demands for qualified information and communications technology (ICT) specialists will not be met, seeing a shortfall of up to 500,000 ICT professionals in 2020. Virtual and Augmented Reality solutions are amongst those with some of the highest market demand in the ICT sector.

Education is the driver to sustainability of our economy and functionality of humanity. Every day we seek to learn new information and and the way we take the lessons and apply to our every day lives, is the core of how we explore we grow and we build futures for ourselves.

Through virtual and augmented realities, the technology allows the user to immerse themselves into a virtual experience or location and the immersive lesson is retained at a much quicker time frame with a more impactful lasting memory. VR & Learning, by the National Training Laboratory, advised retention rates for lecture style learning were at 5%, with reading rates at 10%. Meanwhile, the teaching method of VR scored a retention rate of 75%.

Understanding we are moving into a world with exponential growth, there is a necessary requirement to update our education system to support innovative technologies to understand how it will be applied to job creation and support digital support systems and processes.



It is in this context where Patrick O’Shea and myself, both from ILRN (Immersive Learning Research Network) and ICICLE ( X-Reality for Learning and Performance Augmentation, IEEE IC Industry Consortium on Learning Engineering) talk about Immersive Education around Cup of Coffee.

Thanks Patrick, for this amazing conversation.

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Carlos J. Ochoa Fernádez ©