What Unity does

Unity is a real-time 3D development platform that allows educators to create immersive and interactive experiences for their students. It provides a suite of tools and services for creating, operating, and monetizing games and other real-time 3D content. Unity supports a wide range of industries, including education, and is trusted by over 1.8 million active creators monthly. For teachers, Unity provides a platform to create engaging educational content that can be deployed across all major AR, VR, mobile, desktop, and console platforms. Unity also offers a wealth of learning resources, including tutorials, extensive documentation, and a vibrant community of creators.

Key features for teachers

Unity offers several features that are beneficial for teachers:

• Unity Learn: A collection of courses, tutorials, and projects that help students go from being completely new to Unity to becoming game developers.
• Unity for Educators: A comprehensive guide that helps educators understand how to use Unity in the classroom.
• Unity Education Grant License: Gives institutions multi-seat access to Unity's real-time 3D development tool.
• Unity Teach Community: A global community of educators who teach Unity.
• Unity Educators Live: A series of free professional development sessions facilitated by Unity Education and community of Unity instructors.

Pricing

Unity offers a free Educator Plan for teachers at accredited educational institutions. For professional use, Unity Pro is available at $185 per month.

Potential classroom applications

Teachers can use Unity in several creative ways:

1. Interactive Learning through Game Development: Unity can be used to teach students how to create their own games, which can be a fun and engaging way to learn programming and design skills.
2. Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) Simulations: Unity's AR/VR tools can be used to create immersive learning experiences. For instance, students can build 3D worlds and visually program their experiences from scratch using Unity's Zoe platform.
3. Real-Time 3D Visualization: Unity can be used to create real-time 3D visualizations, which can help students better understand abstract concepts. For example, a research group at Imperial College London developed a VR visualization for teaching students fluid dynamics.