Searching for application areas for using AI and VR in the Higher Education classroom in Ireland
Authors: Dooly Zeta , Moran Lisa , Wall PJ , Lodge Emer 
Published: September 2024

The changing landscape of education for all, internationally, has led to education policy and operationalisation mis-matches, we advocate for active learning and critical pedagogy in our modern society but our society and resources are not sufficiently welcoming to adopting emerging hardware and software in the classroom. Resource constraints restrict the move from experiential learning to implementation where resistance is in-built within our culture to hold on to traditional teaching and learning methods and delivery mechanisms. We are familiar and open to science requiring apparatus, but using tools such as virtual reality and artificial intelligence in our everyday teaching and learning is uncommon and warrants further evidence to support its implementation to becoming the norm.

Education is the keystone for progress, we promote education as a sustainable, complementary activity to economic social and caring aspects of our society. As an integral part of the UN Sustainable developmental goals how we meet the objectives are contextual and in Ireland we currently adopt a traditional in-person educational experience with many online programmes affiliated with options for lifelong learning rather than mainstream education. Thus the experience of the authors through SEERLab (South East Education Research Lab) to design and develop teaching and learning artefacts is presented in this paper. SEERLab focuses on strategies to build a sense of community in HE (virtually) of educationalists who through their own learning experiences gain empowerment to dramatically change the classroom composition, using both physical hardware (VR headsets) and software (AI) to accentuate critical thinking and immersive learning in the classroom. There is evidence to support the use of VR in the classroom toward enhanced engagement of students (Kavanagh et al., 2017 and Campos et al., 2022).

However, the emergence of new education policies based on data, learning analytics, tertiary market demand and access is not easily understood in our communities. We purport that educationalists need to embrace change at HE to administer and deliver curriculum using non-standard applications. This research initiated by lecturers in the design of pilots to meet learning outcomes through using VR is gathering evidence to further develop HE policy using VR in the classroom. There are tensions in global societal research discourses in relation to emerging technologies such as AI and scant social scientific research on societal attitudes towards AI; its value and limitations in education, fears and emotions about AI technology which requires redress.

Without guidance lecturers advocating for the use of VR and AI in the classroom are challenged to demonstrate understanding the socio-cultural legitimacy of AI in Irish society. We present the cases of SEERLab that has been established to scaffold educationalists toward enhancing their attitudes towards VR and AI.

These challenges can be overcome using an innovative pedagogical approach to link the needs of teachers and lecturers and students to untangle the complexity of emerging technology and deliver educational solutions globally and nationally. The pilot cases presented include modules from Nursing, Business and PhD postgraduate programmes. The piloting of this technology is moving to implementation stage and along with evidence from open educational communities we present the potential benefits and limitations of VR and AI in HE classrooms, which can lead to engaged students, innovative pedagogies, misperceptions, heightened sense of risk, inertia and resistance to its adoption. Universities, governments and organizations can work together to raise awareness about VR and AI through education and outreach initiatives aimed at different student cohorts but this necessitates greater knowledge in relation to accessibility, usability and educational ‘buy in’ and exposure to VR and AI technologies that combine scientific expertise with pedagogical know-how.