ANN ARBOR – It’s safe to call it now- 2016 will be the year that virtual reality took the world by storm.

By the end of 2016, consumers will have a variety of platforms to choose from, with a range of budgets and applications. Tour the solar system, walk around the ocean floor, or visit France, all in amazing detail and from the comfort of your chair.

One of the clearest applications is in education. With low cost headsets available, it’s now possible for entire classrooms to take virtual fieldtrips to places not normally experienced by students. But VR in the classroom is not just limited to cyber trips to Jupiter, as some students are able to use the technology in much more direct ways.

Google Cardboard, a low cost VR option that utilizes a simple headset, lenses, and smart phone, is one of the first VR systems to make whole classroom use available.  In March, the company launched Google Expeditions, a prepackaged kit for educators that includes headsets for the students, VR fieldtrip apps, and a tablet for teacher guidance and control, all at no cost to the school.  The fieldtrips include underwater exploration, Mars, and others.

These virtual visits offer a far more compelling and engaging experience than the filmstrips and videos many of us sat through in the past. A perfect example is an app called “Titans of Space,” a tour of our solar system and beyond.  Users visit planets, moons, and other celestial objects, each with its own facts and data, which by itself is nothing you couldn’t see at your local planetarium.  But in virtual reality, users truly can experience the enormous size and sense of scale that’s difficult to get across in two dimensions.  With the headset on, you are constantly aware of the sun, and just how large that burning ball is compared to our own world.  No Styrofoam model cane quite compare.

The more advanced headsets, like the Oculus Rift, offer a different opportunity for students- building their own digital worlds.  Many of the VR apps are built in Unity, a programming system that many burgeoning programmers are already working with, in classes as early as middle school.  Through these tools, students are enabled to construct everything from games to simulated roller coasters, all which they can directly experience for themselves.  At first glance, this may seem like just another exercise for students, trends indicate that we are on the cusp of widespread VR adoption, and these young programmers will very likely need this skillset in the future.

In the upper levels of education, VR is being utilized in many fields, from practicing medical procedures to engineering automobiles.  Universities are also using the tech in recruiting efforts, offering VR tours of campus, and the University of Michigan even offers a VR experience to its football recruits, showing just what it’s like to take the field in maize and blue.

Once lumped in with hoverboards and flying cars as “only science fiction,” it now seems clear that VR is here to stay.  Just as clear is that we are only scratching the surface of what’s possible, both in and out of the classroom.  VR could be the next “laptop/tablet for every student,” replacing the blackboard, fieldtrips, or even the classroom itself.  No matter how it’s used, there’s no question that students will be in for quite a ride…at least virtually speaking.

This column was written by Dale Gainey, Merit Network. To learn more about how Merit serves k-20 institutions, visit www.merit.edu.