Public Speaking in the Metaverse: Integrating Public Speaking and Extended Reality to Improve Students’ Presentation Skills

Abstract

With the increased advancement and accessibility of digital technologies, instructors and educators continue to experiment with immersive reality to foster students’ engagement and experiential learning. The use of extended reality (XR) provides new and exciting ways for students to practice various skills — including communication ones — in a safe and realistic environment. In this activity, I describe and reflect on how I integrated XR in my public speaking class with the goal of helping students refine their presentation skills and simulate different speech contexts that would be difficult to replicate in the traditional classroom environment. Students’ experiences suggest that, although XR cannot (and should not) replace in-person public speaking, it can provide meaningful simulations and even help to alleviate public speaking anxiety for unknown and unfamiliar situations