Virtual Reality Assisted Learning
What is virtual reality? The term itself caught the early attention of the entertainment industry, having been coined in the 1938 book, “The Theater and its Double” (French: “Le Théâtre et son double”) by Antonin Artaud. The term was variously carried into pop culture by many of the same inventions that brought about radio and television. The zoetrope is a good, although primitive, example of an early attempt at entertaining or fooling the human eye. As a concept, the writer, composer, and general polymath, Jaron Lanier, is considered to be one of the founding fathers of modern virtual reality. Virtual reality attempts to use the senses to trick the brain into believing what is presented to them, even though the actual physical surroundings differ from what’s seen, heard, smelled, felt, or even tasted. In 1939, for instance, the View-Masteri won its patent and began working its way onto the faces of virtually every child in the Western Hemisphere. The stereoscopic toy was a delight and brought scenes, both real and cartoon, to life.
We’ve had a taste of VR on our lips for a very long time. Through these last three decades of our current technological revolution plenty of one-offs and ephemeral ideas have been floated through the general description of virtual reality; from the Nintendo Virtual Boy in 1995ii to the Oculus Rift in 2012iii and into present day augmented reality. What is augmented reality? Building on the idea of VR’s digital world, one that doesn’t necessarily correspond to any given real physical location or setting, augmented reality overlays virtual reality onto our normal human field of vision, allowing us to enhance the perception of our environment with contextual cues. For instance, if we were to be wearing an augmented reality headset and look at a banana, we may see recipes or a note stating the last date we purchased bananas. Augmented reality, or AR, bring virtual digital elements into our real everyday lives.
So, we strap on some goggles, put on some headphones, and play some video games, right? Though they’re still relatively young technologies, VR and AR aren’t just for entertainment purposes anymore. Virtual and augmented realities are providing zero-harm environments in which workers can train for high risk and even deadly daily scenarios. One such scenario that plays out across America fairly often is police interaction with the general public. Virtual reality allows for greater immersion and calls on situational awareness that book and paper training just can’t grasp. Larger companies, universities, and government agencies that can afford to add VR setups to their learning management systems, or LMS, will find improvements in their workforce’s performance.iv
For the greater audience of learners, students and teachers namely, VR and AR are opening us up to new horizons. With a much smaller budget, many hundreds of students could virtually visit ancient archeological sites without ever running afoul of a single mummy’s curse. Sites like Angkor Wat that have begun crumbling under the weight of tourist visits, can remain unscathed by untold numbers of virtual visits.v In a joint venture between a virtual reality lab, REM5, and the agricultural conglomerate Cargill, about 800 employees of the food giant were immersed in a 360-degree movie produced by the New York Times entitled, Travelling While Black.vi This is the closest our technology can do to not just metaphorically, but also virtually put us in someone else’s shoes. This change of perspective is different for different people, perhaps the change is only in gender, but is likely to be one of race. These sorts of experiences aren’t as vivid for someone doing in person rehearsals or tabletop exercises.
For me the key to it all is immersion, the ability to surround yourself in the minutia of a digital experience until it starts to feel real. The detail of the design of the experience is just as important as the location behind the imagery. Take medical applications of virtual and augmented reality, for example. There’re training applications for medical doctors, the eternal learners, where VR meets AR in the intimate setting of a patient’s heart. Using VR, doctors can now tour a patient’s internal organs before a surgery and get acquainted on a level of detail undreamt of in the last century.vii Light-weight virtual and augmented reality systems are in full production at this time, with new offerings being developed by Google and Facebook, among others. As with any tool, its utility will be judged on whether we use it to improve or malign our human condition. The potential for VR and AR still being explored for many commercial purposes, but the most noble among them are definitely the ones that are saving lives.
i https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/View-Master
ii https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_Boy
iii https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oculus_VR
iv https://www.forbes.com/sites/theyec/2020/03/10/how-virtual-reality-is-impacting-enterprise-training/
v https://www.virtualangkor.com/
vii http://www.dailyuw.com/science/article_41c8032c-6273-11ea-b686-efc60a6d00b0.html
