VR Ambassador Program Ready to Print 5.000 Pioneers of Virtual Reality-Based Learning Media

The COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 forced us to face big changes suddenly. The education sector is not spared either. Teaching and learning activities that are generally carried out face-to-face must now take place online. Unpreparedness also occurs a lot because in a short time, educators must be able to adapt to the available technology.

On the other hand, students also experience boredom because online learning methods are less effective. They crave new methods that can give learning pleasure, and this is where technology is Virtual Reality (VR) is present as one solution.

We can examine the relevance of VR in the education sector further in the World Economic Forum report published in October 2020. The data in the report shows that the absorption of VR technology in education will reach 70% by 2025.

The high need for VR technology is certainly not without reason. VR is proven to be able to improve student achievement in terms of understanding the material, increasing positive emotions, to critical thinking skills. The proof has been done in many countries in the form of university scientific research and independent research.

In Indonesia, we can see the positive impact of VR implementation in the education sector from trials conducted in 10 provinces by providers platform VR-based education from Indonesia, MilleaLab. In this trial, MilleaLab collaborated with schools recommended by the Indonesian Teachers Association network.

"The trial involving 1.800 students from primary and secondary levels gave very positive results," explained Andes Rizky, Managing Director of MilleaLab. "From the experimental data, the use of VR can increase students' positive emotions by up to 90%, improve students' memory and understanding in learning contexts by up to 80%, and is also able to increase class average scores by up to 53%," he added.

LanternEdu, platform Education initiated by the Putera Sampoerna Foundation, believes that VR technology can be a solution for adjusting teaching and learning activities in the pandemic era, as well as being a gateway to uniting technology that is friendly to both staff and students at the same time.

VR Ambassador program to accelerate the digital transformation of Indonesia's education

Adhering to this principle, LenteraEdu initiated the VR Ambassador program which aims to produce educators who can become technology pioneers. immersive in Indonesian education. In carrying out the program, LenteraEdu collaborates with MilleaLab, which since 2019 has been actively providing VR training programs.

The combination of the experiences of educators and facilitators from LenteraEdu with the friendly technology that MilleaLab has created can certainly synergize and open the gates of Indonesian education to a better step. This is also evidenced by the high enthusiasm for the VR Ambassador program. Until the last day, the number of data entered as registrants was 3x more than the targeted amount.

Of the many applicants, LenteraEdu and MilleaLab have selected to get 100 candidates ambassador best. Some of them are also vocational school teachers, and the hope is that they can help improve the quality of graduates in the vocational field, which in turn will have an impact on increasing the number of more competent small and medium enterprises.

In total, the VR Ambassador program will last for six months. The selection process was completed last December, and the training program itself will be held from February to March. During the training, the teachers will be honed their knowledge as well as their skills in compiling innovative alternative learning materials by utilizing VR technology.

The ultimate goal of course is that student learning outcomes can be improved, while providing an authentic and limitless learning experience for them. But that's not all, each of the 100 VR Ambassadors is also required to disseminate to 50 educators where they are located, so that they can expand good practices and the positive impact they provide. This dissemination program is planned to be carried out from April to June 2021.

This VR Ambassador program has received full support from the Ministry of Industry and the Ministry of Research and Technology. However, LanternEdu and MilleaLab are still open pintu collaboration with other agencies that are interested in contributing directly to the digital transformation of education in the country, whether in the form of sponsorship and other forms of support.

Disclosure: DailySocial is the media partner of the ShintaVR/MilleLab program.