Surreal Builds Virtual Campus for Future Online Learning

Emerged themselves in VR classrooms created by Surreal, a Taiwan-based startup supported by National Development Council, focusing on digital education, students feel more comfortable speaking foreign language. Intending to make education more accessible for students from remote areas, Andy Peng, the CEO, and founder of Surreal believes that XR technology will benefit the learning of the young generation and nurture more innovative talents in Taiwan. SURREALM, a learning platform launched by Surreal, aims to give students an interactive virtual learning environment where they can have a sense of togetherness, presence, and playfulness. It combines emojis that most students, as digital natives, are familiar with to give feedback. The grouping function allows students to discuss and collaborate in virtual classrooms, as well as to communicate and play freely during break time. For teachers, SURREALM enables education to cross the boundaries of space and make more efficient use of limited resources and time. In the VR classroom, teachers can present the material in a variety of ways to achieve the best possible learning outcomes. Students can explore a wide range of content like images, videos, documents, and audio. In addition, it also provides comprehensive lesson preparation, classroom management and assignment functions, allowing lecturers to easily control the progress of teaching. The intuitive design of the user interface makes it easy for both teachers and students to get started. The rich content and high level of interactivity allow teachers to easily capture the attention of students and increase engagement to ensure knowledge is internalized. In SURREALM, users can interact with each other in a lively Avatar image to bring them closer to each other. With the virtual world feature, the learning process can be recreated on demand. Users can manage their own class schedules via the website and view a complete record of their learning history, test results and more. In pursuit of a new challenge, Andy decided to start his own business 17 years ago despite his family's opposition. He observed that most of Taiwan's industries are still stuck in the 1990s and need to be digitally transformed to allow for a paradigm shift. Surreal therefore aims not only to facilitate the digitalization of the education industry, but also to nurture a new generation of educators and equip teachers with new digital skills. In the 1980s, teachers used to write on blackboards to teach lessons. In the 2000s, teachers relied on slides. In the Metaverse era, educators must have to learn new ways to teach digital natives.' Andy says. In Korea, the government has spent 20 years developing metaverse teaching materials from primary to high school, bringing together experts and scholars from various fields. Currently, Surreal is working with the Ministry of Education to pilot an experimental teaching program in the hope of training metaverse teachers who will change the way children study. Andy was delighted to see children in the rural areas of Kaohsiung, who were originally scared of learning English, become interested in the language via the Metaverse materials. 'As if drunk, the students suddenly had the courage to speak English in the metaverse.' During the group competition, the vocabulary of those children increased significantly. Children are incredibly creative and imaginative with digital technology.' says Andy. In the attempt to try out the Metaverse materials, many teachers were surprised to find that students took the initiative to create their own digital learning records by putting their artwork and audio-visual works in their personal exhibition rooms. Since early this year, educational officials from other APEC countries approached Surreal to solve the problem of students being unable to attend school due to the epidemic. The next step is for Surreal to actively engage with other Asian countries such as Malaysia, Singapore, and Japan. 'We are like a digital school landlord, creating teaching buildings for different educational needs.' Andy says.