Last week we talked about augmented and mixed reality, a technology that adds virtual and interactive layers to our real world surroundings. This week we go further down the rabbit hole and take a closer look at virtual reality, which transports the user into a completely digitally created world.
Similar to smartphones and tablets in recent years, VR headsets will surely work their way into schools through adoption in the consumer market. As soon as children and parents have VR devices in their living room VR will eventually arrive in classrooms and the workplace.
The use cases of virtual reality in education are essentially the same as with augmented reality, the major difference being that the scenarios take place in an entirely digitally created environment.
Before we focus on today’s VR landscape, let us take a stroll down memory lane to one of the forefathers of this field, Second Life. While this tool and platform for virtual worlds is not part of virtual reality, technically speaking, it gave us a first impression of the possibilities of learning in virtual settings.
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Fantasy Islands
At the height of Second Life in 2007 / 08 higher education institutions were especially interested in the possibilities of taking their classroom teaching into the cyberspace and therefore growing their reach beyond the limitations of a physical campus.
Leading universities and colleges purchased virtual real estate, so-called islands, on Second Life and created virtual campus experiences that often included virtual copies of their real world buildings. Early adopters included renowned institutions like Stanford University, SUNY, University of Delaware or the Mayo Clinic.
Unfortunately, the hype did not live up to the dream and today most of these virtual worlds are abandoned. Fusion revisited some of these virtual campuses in 2015 and there is a whole list available on Second Life’s directory.
Viable Niches
While the use of virtual worlds in higher education never took off, there have been outliers in vocational and language training. One of the first edtech startups in this niche was London-based Languagelab, now Immerse Learning. Languagelab created a virtual city to teach ESL in different real life situations.
Moreover Second Life and similar platforms, also naturally give themselves as basis for VR experiences. After rebranding to Immerse Learning and switching the development platform, the company added VR to its set of features as shown in the promotional video below.
One of the major advantages of using virtual reality in education is the freedom it gives the instructor in terms of settings and locations. As VR, other than augmented reality, is not tied to real world locations, learning scenarios can essentially take place anywhere, saving cost and adding security as the training does not need to take place on a real oil rig or inside a real helicopter cockpit.
This again is especially interesting in vocational training scenarios, from combat simulations for soldiers and flight simulators for pilots to disaster simulations for rescue personnel.
For example, the logistics behind a disaster drill in the real world are immense, from closing down entire parts of a city to making the scene look realistic. Those drills are also limited to a day or less. In VR such a disaster drill could take place on demand and adapted to different scenarios and a fraction of the cost.
Big Bets
According to Fortune, VCs have put more than $4 billion in VR startups over the past five years, and the overall market is estimated at nearly $16 billion by 2019. Besides the funding there is of course the acquisition of VR headset maker Oculus Rift by Facebook for $2 billion two years ago.
The best bet to get VR into the hands of consumers is of course entertainment, not education. At this year’s E3 we saw a lot of new entrants into the VR arena, both from device makers and game creators.
Lowering the VR entrance barrier
VR has been tied to high cost for the better part of its existence as the needed hardware always came with a hefty price tag. Smart phones and Google Cardboard have changed that dramatically. With a price of only $20 anyone who owns an Android powered smartphone can turn it into a VR headset. Even more elaborate devices like the Samsung Gear VR are now affordable at a retail price of $99.
In September of last year Google made its move into the K-12 classroom with its Pioneer Expeditions program based on Google Cardboard and the New York Times sent out Google Cardboard viewers to millions of its subscribers.
Based on the success of Cardboard, Google also has plans to dig deeper into the vertical by launching its own virtual reality headset later this year.
Truly immersive VR
In order to make VR a truly immersive experience we will need complementary devices that let the user manipulate objects and move more naturally in digital worlds. Leap Motion is already doing a decent job when it comes to “touching” and moving objects yet sensations like haptic feedback are missing entirely for now.
The other problem is that walking in a virtual world is limited to sitting in a chair and moving our virtual avatars through game controllers. There are of course solutions available like the Virtuix Omni or an interesting low cost alternative called RIPmotion.
What it takes to go Mainstream
As mentioned above, pricing and usability are still the main issues for VR to break into the mainstream consumer market but there are now enough big companies working on new devices and technologies that will make VR more user friendly in the near term.
Further Reading
- When Virtual Reality Meets Education
- The Virtual Classroom: Virtual Reality in Training and Education
- This is the Beginning of VR Education, and It Will Only Get Better
- A Beginner’s Journey Into Virtual Reality
For an even deeper dive into VR in education I suggest our Reading List: Virtual Reality in Education from earlier this year which features over 30 articles and use cases of virtual reality in K-12, Higher Ed and Corporate Training.
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Picture by Maurizio Pesce via Flickr