08/01/2025
Emerging Technologies and Their Uses in Education, Counseling, and Healthcare
By Ann Nakaska
There are numerous technologies emerging from the fourth industrial revolution, such as artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicles, and 3D printing. This article focuses on three emerging technologies: robotics, augmented reality and virtual reality, and how these technologies are being used in education, counseling and health care. Career counselor educators will need to bring these technologies to the attention of their counseling students to increase their labor market information competency, to illustrate the impact of these technologies on future career decision making of their students’ clients, and to start implementing these technologies in their own teaching methods.
Robots
Robots have been around since the 1960s. Britannica (Moravec, 2025) defines robots as “any automatically operated machine that replaces human effort.... By extension, robotics is the engineering discipline dealing with the design, construction, and operation of robots.” Early robots were designed to replace humans in hazardous and toxic work environments, such as bomb disposal. The field of robotics has expanded, and robots are being used in every industry. They cook, construct, and provide care.
Robots and Education
Robots can be used as teaching assistants, tutors, or small group leaders. Examples include companies like Wonder Workshop (2025) in California, which has created Dash for younger children. Dash can sing, dance and help teach children basic coding. They originally created Cue for older middle schoolers to help students learn code, robotics, engineering, and other STEM-based topics. Could robots like Cue be used to help students learn other career related skills? However, Cue has been discontinued, and Dash’s applications have been expanded to replace Cue.
Robots and Counseling
Robots can even help people cope with several psychological issues. Students at the University of Amsterdam created Phobot, (NBC News, 2008), which is designed to help children deal with anxiety and phobias. It mimics the psychological principle of graded exposure. Could they also help with career anxiety in older teens? Beatbots (2025) a US and Japanese company, developed Keepon Pro to help autistic children with social and emotional development. Lastly, MIT students created Ollie the Otter (Ackerman, 2015), which was designed to simulate a live animal to reduce stress in dementia patients. In pet therapy, interactions with animals can help people cope with uncomfortable feelings. While showing promise for being a very affordable health robot, the team and the university did no further development. As robot exteriors become more lifelike and as wearable devices improve, robots similar to Ollie may be used to offer comfort to dementia patients and provide feedback information to care givers.
Robots and Healthcare
Robots are finding their way into areas of healthcare, including performing surgeries, reducing contamination in medical device manufacturing, and providing senior care. Intuitive’s da Vinci Systems (Intuitive, 2025) in California has been using robots for the last 30 years in minimally invasive surgeries. According to their website, a leader in their field, they had performed over 14 million surgeries by 2022.
Universal Robots (2003) in Michigan focuses on developing collaborative robots that look like robot arms. They demonstrate how collaborative robots can reduce the risk of human contamination during assembly of medical devices and improve quality overall in the production of pharmaceuticals and medtech.
Robots are also being used in senior care. Zorabots (E+T Engineering and Technology, 2025) in Belgium created an interactive caregiver that helped seniors connect with loved ones during the pandemic. AvatarMind Robot Technology in California (2017) created iPal, a robot caregiver that helps seniors remember to take their medications and monitors falls and medical emergencies.
Augmented and Virtual Reality
Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries (n.d.a) defines augmented reality (AR) as “a technology that combines computer generated images on a screen with a real object or scene that you are looking at.” They define virtual reality (VR) (n.d.b) as “images and sounds created by a computer that seemed almost real to the user who can interact with them by using sensors.” How might practitioners start to use AR and VR to interact with clients in new ways?
Augmented and Virtual Reality in Education
Augmented and virtual reality bring real life experiences into the classroom, allowing students to experience learning in whole new ways. Bernard Marr (2021) shares how AR and VR are being used to bring a tornado right into the classroom or allows students to go inside a beehive. The Skyview app is used to identify nighttime constellations, and BBC’s Immersive VR Education has created a simulation of the 1943 Berlin blitz using real-life images to re-create a nighttime raid.
Virtual Reality in Counselling
Liana Spytska (2024) discusses how VR is used to help treat phobias and PTSD. NeuroLaunch (2024) demonstrates the ways VR can be used in therapeutic care, and Abbvie,(HealthiAR, 2016) a Chicago company, uses VR to increase empathy for patients: doctors and loved ones can experience the world of Parkinson’s patients by living that experience through VR.
Virtual Reality and Healthcare
US company Rendever (2025) uses VR in senior facilities to create common experiences between loved ones and patients; for example, families can experience the senior’s history by visiting childhood locations. The Stanford Chariot Program (Standford University, n.d.) at Stanford University helps alleviate children’s fears around medical procedures. MindMaze (n.d.) in Switzerland helps people with neurological diseases to recover, adapt, and learn using multiple technologies, increasing what has been possible in neurological recovery.
The Future of Career Planning
Emerging technologies are touching every industry, including what we think of as people- centered industries. Career planning for a better future depends on practitioners understanding how these technologies are changing our practices, our workplaces and creating new opportunities for clients. Whether this means clients will use VR to experience new career options or practitioners will use VR to remotely connect with our clients, the future is here now.
References
Ackerman, E. (2015, March 25). Ollie the baby otter is a therapy robot that’s actually affordable. IEEE Spectrum. https://spectrum.ieee.org/mit-ollie-the-baby-otter-therapy-robot
AvatarMind Robot Technology. (2017). AvatarMind iPal robot family: For senior care, retail/hospitality, and children’s education. https://www.ipalrobot.com/
Beatbots. (2025). Beatbots. https://beatbots.net/keepon-pro
E + T Engineering and Technology. (2025). Robots keeping elderly Belgians connected with loved ones during coronavirus. https://eandt.theiet.org/2020/03/17/robots-keeping-elderly-belgians-connected-loved-ones-during-coronavirus
HealthiAR. (2016, October 28). Abbvie parkinsons VR. https://healthiar.com/parkinsons-vr-simulation
Intuitive. (2025). Intuitive da Vinci. We believe minimally invasive care is life-enhancing care. https://www.intuitive.com/en-us/about-us/company
Lego. (2025). Mindstorms. https://www.lego.com/en-us/themes/mindstorms/about
Marr, B. (2021, July 23). 10 best examples of VR and AR in education. https://bernardmarr.com/10-best-examples-of-vr-and-ar-in-education/
MindMaze. (n.d.). Homepage. https://mindmaze.com/
Moravec, H. P. (2025, May 18). Robot. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/technology/robot-technology
NBC News. (2008, March 20). Cowardly robot steals hearts and minds. The Associated Press. https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna23723801
NeuroLaunch. (2024, October 1). Virtual reality therapy: Revolutionizing mental health treatment. https://neurolaunch.com/virtual-reality-therapy/
Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries. (n.d.a). Augmented reality. https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/english/augmented-reality?q=augmented+reality+
Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries. (n.d.b). Virtual reality. https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/virtual-reality?q=virtual+reality+
Rendever. (2025). Homepage. https://www.rendever.com/
Standford University. (n.d.) Stanford Chariot Program. https://chariot.stanford.edu/
Spystka, L. (2024, December). The use of virtual reality in the treatment of mental disorders such as phobias and post-traumatic stress disorder. Elsevier – Mental Health. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666560324000562
Universal Robots. (2023, November 21). Universal robots launches virtual pharma event. https://www.universal-robots.com/news-and-media/news-center/universal-robots-launches-virtual-pharma-event/
Wonder Workshop. (2025). Dash robot. https://www.makewonder.com/en/dash/
Ann Nakaska M.Ed. CDF has a background in psychology, education, and business. She specializes in career decision making and career planning with a special interest in career opportunities of the future. she researches, writes and presents on career opportunities of the future and her work on emerging technologies and industry is recognized by career practitioners around the world.
Email: Ann.nakaska@shaw.ca
Website: Constructive Career and Life Designs With Ann Nakaska
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ann-nakaska-ba-med-52315747/recent-activity/all/