Arkansas' public schools are all set to receive 500 virtual reality classroom kits from Facebook. The donation value is worth $1 million and is aimed at enhancing the overall STEM program of the state. For Facebook, this is the first step in bridging the gap between VR and education, and they are hoping for similar collaborations with other states soon.

Virtual reality may become a true disrupter for K-12 education. In a survey conducted on K-12 tech, an overwhelming 85 percent of teachers responded positively toward VR. The new generation of teachers thinks that both augmented reality and virtual reality will be beneficial for their classrooms and for bridging the knowledge gap.

Educational tools like VR can transport students to visit far-off places or look inside the human body, adding a real-time quotient to traditional textbook teaching. Presently, only 2 percent of these teachers are using VR in the classroom.

Experts predicting future trends agree that VR will become an important facet of K-12 education within the next 2-3 years. This has naturally led to more school districts putting VR on their roadmap. The use of emerging technologies like this will define the quality of education at every level.

Many educators think this will also meet the teacher shortage needs with which the country has been grappling for years now. The use of VR can deliver quality education to all students along with bringing knowledge to students in remote areas that are severely lacking in resources.

Virtual reality requires an initial investment — unless more states enjoy donations like Arkansas — but manages to prevent recurring expenses or resource problems down the road. Schools districts like Knoxville, Tenn., are setting great examples by utilizing a portion of the yearly grant to purchase VR headsets.

As public school districts formulate plans to incorporate VR and make it mandatory, private and charter schools may be moving at a faster rate.

A few months ago, Washington Leadership Academy, a D.C. charter school that serves mostly minority students, won $10 million from XQ Institute to expand its technology and virtual reality programs. Overseen by former U.S. Department of Education official Russlyn Ali, the grant is focused on enhancing knowledge and also prepare students for the workforce of the future.

So what are the tangible benefits of virtual reality?

This emerging technology has the potential to hold the attention of a student far more than a textbook. In an age dominated by electronic media, we would be remiss in expecting children only to limit themselves to textbooks.

Audio-visual has great power, and when you add the three-dimensional landscape on an exploratory route, the potential for immersive knowledge and information retention is huge. It is a medium where the student is an active participant in the lesson, albeit indirectly, instead of simply listening to one-way instructions like before.

VR promises to make difficult learning concepts easy for all students, enhancing their learning experiences and their imagination. While parents have been ruing the obsession with electronics, educators are hoping to use just that to hold the child's attention and cut down the usual distractions that hinder lessons.

The hope is that virtual reality will democratize experiences and remove the barriers to education as students' capacity to learn will no longer be limited by the environment around them.