Philosophy & the Thinker: How Can I Use Virtual Reality in the Classroom?
Just ten years ago if you said "virtual reality" to a student (really, even to your colleagues), they might have responded with their best stab at what they could remember from a Philosophy class. Little did anyone really know (even the programmers) that teachers would jump at the opportunity to include what equated to "stepping into the machine" a la "Tron" in order to experience things previously unavailable to our classrooms.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ancient/explore-ancient-egypt.html
The popularity of virtual reality as a medium and a mode has exploded for entertainment (think video games and short movies), for travel (Yes! You CAN take your kids to the pyramids of Egypt or even to time travel to 17th century colonial period society!), medicine (Want to know how to travel the bloodstream as a corpuscle?), and for reimagining their surroundings in ways that enable them to communicate their identities and ideas.
Museums are now building immersive experiences instead of static displays of art and history. Educators are starting to tap into these new applications to create or participate in what are referred to as "virtual reality holodecks":
http://inesogura.weebly.com/my-learning/virtual-reality-holodeck
https://www.digitalbodies.net/virtual-reality/star-trek-in-vr-why-cant-we-do-this-in-education/
With the advent of inexpensive, wearable VR goggles and handheld cameras, teachers are now exploring how to use this technology to create a more interactive experience in the learning process that activates more of the brain and working memory, possibly increasing transfer of knowledge and skills to long-term memory with more success. The research is still in its early stages, but it is being applied in the field.
Mynd in Dallas, Texas, is pioneering the world of virtual reality to work with residents in a retirement home in order to begin building out and analyzing the effects of immersive environments on memory recall. The early stages of this work are compelling. What could we do to support the needs of a developing brain from youth to advanced age through this medium?
Interesting in finding out more? Visit this link for a quick look at how VR might work in the classroom and what kind of resources you may need:
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/how-can-schools-use-virtual-reality-180957974/
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