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After trying VR (Oculus Go) for the first time, I am convinced VR maybe the future of education. Being able to watch something in 3D as opposed to just 2D vide

After trying VR (Oculus Go) for the first time, I am convinced VR maybe the future of education. Being able to watch something in 3D as opposed to just 2D video is like night and day. Btw, I'm not talking about 360' videos, I'm talking about the 3D stereoscopic ones. When I watch a video in 3D, I can actually totally relate to what I am watching and it is as if I am actually there. It really helps with perception and understanding the subject.

arkitaip 8y ago
We now know that tech isn't an high impact factor when it comes to learning quality. This is based on John Hattie's profound research work covering 1200 meta studies: https://visible-learning.org/hattie-ranking-influences-effect-sizes-learning-achievement/ https://visible-learning.org/hattie-ranking-influences-effec...
- TaylorAlexander 8y ago
  That seems like a very broad statement. I played with VR a few years ago, and found the notion of an immersive virtual environment to be profoundly different from looking at something on a computer screen. Some technology absolutely helps with learning. Pencils and paper are technology that help us write down our thoughts. School buildings and chalkboards are technology that make it easy for us to meet and collaborate. Computers too can provide an opportunity for us to play with abstract concepts. Immersive VR could be a way to better understand certain concepts. With the right presentation, I think VR could be a more effective way of learning than other methods.
- mikeash 8y ago
  I don’t think you can treat “tech” as a general category. VR headsets are totally different from smartboards which are totally different from graphing calculators. Maybe VR headsets will be useless too, but I don’t think you can extrapolate that.
  - leetbulb 8y ago
    I agree. VR is a completely new interface for us with technology and we have yet to even discover the tip of that iceberg.
jlg23 8y ago
If your subject benefits from a 3d representation at all. I dare to say: most do not, just as most do not benefit from video. I think the real revolution in teaching will be when we have enough well educated, well paid teachers. Imagine the level of immersion that could be accomplished with real-time individualized lessons!
- shafyy 8y ago
  True. And VR allows new school models with a wildly different cost structure than today's. You don't need a physical building, no physicial equipment and geographic location doesn't matter. In addition, because VR makes project-based learning [0] more scalable, a teacher's time can be used more efficiently. These cost-savings can be passed on to the students and the teachers (in the form of higher salaries). All this while improving average the education quality. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project-based_learning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project-based_learning
  - lostlogin 8y ago
    This sounds terrible to me. The process of learning, particularly when young, isn’t just about having the information fed to you. It’s about trying, failing and being shown where you went wrong. Quite literally, falling and being helped up. How do you get help diverse problems like handwriting, getting on with others and the millions of other situations teachers help with? Empathy via Facebook sounds bad. A big problem with education in my opinion is that everyone who has been to school sees themselves as a teaching expert. The near-minimum-wage teacher who buy school supplies out of their own pockets, they are the experts. Rant over.
    - shafyy 8y ago
      Completely agree. And my whole point is that you can do that better in VR. Instead of meeting in the real world, meet in VR and learn there together with your friends and teacher.
      - 8y ago
FLUX-YOU 8y ago
Anything that requires hand/eye coordination is waiting on a good VR implementation. I would totally pay $60 for a VR game that has you building a house from the ground up or doing woodworking in as much detail as possible (even if it's individual stages and tasks without a proper physics sandbox).
- rixrax 8y ago
  For building a house it should then also include the role playing aspect of dealing with building departments, inspectors, and contractors that don't show up or drill into wires that electrician had just installed. ;-)
nikofeyn 8y ago
can you elaborate? because nothing you mentioned has anything to do with education. the expected use of VR in education reminds me of the failure of nearly every other forced use of technology in education. my mom was a teacher, and i clearly remember the required use of powerpoint to be a major detriment to her teaching. as another example, i was horrified recently during a volunteer opportunity at a local high school at the use of chromebooks in the classroom. it seemed like such a blind use that served no purpose other than to further seaparate the students and teachers from social interaction and communication. i think something like dynamicland is the only technology that has promise to be used as an educational tool.
- isaiahg 8y ago
  Just like it's hard to explain how it feels in VR is hard to explain the difference here. I think the big take away is that it lets you simulate tasks physically instead of just watching them being done. Like the difference between watching something being done and doing it. I know with me, physically doing things with my hands cements the material in my brain way more than reading about it. One thing I can see this being used for is fork lift driver training. You could put the person in the seat of the heavy and expensive equipment without actually risking anything. The user can play around with the controls and make mistakes without the fear of breaking something. That alone would be valuable.
  - scott_ci 8y ago
    there's a company that focuses on this: http://www.forklift-simulator.com/ http://www.forklift-simulator.com/
- wongarsu 8y ago
  I don't think it will help much in teaching math or anything else that can be easily learned from a textbook. But you can't learn plumbing or operating a crane from a textbook, and here VR has great potential. It might also be great for teaching science, since VR can communicate scale much better than drawings.
  - 8y ago
eksemplar 8y ago
I think VR will be the future of a lot of things. I used to think it was sort of fad, like 3D movies but maybe a little cooler. Then our GIS department bought one and I’ve tried it a few times now. I always feel constrained when I go back to my two monitors. The interface and technology in general has some way to go, but I think VR will be the biggest tech revolution in my lifetime and I’ve been around since before the refrigerator was a common thing.
- rocky1138 8y ago
  I'm really glad to hear that you enjoy VR. I have a similar feeling when using BigScreen to do work. All I really need is like twice the resolution so that text is clearer and we can essentially have unlimited scalable desktops.
  - isaiahg 8y ago
    Legible text that you can read without squinting and tracked keyboards will be the floodgate moment I think. I'd really like to see how an IDE can evolve in VR space, especially with collaborate features. It could probably make online offices a regular occurrence.
    - atonalfreerider 8y ago
      primitive.io is an IDE designed for VR
      - applecrazy 8y ago
        How does keyboard input work? Does it track the position of the keyboard and then show a digital equivalent in VR? Because I think most people can’t touch type essentially blindfolded.
scott_ci 8y ago
As someone who develops VR on a daily basis, I'm skeptical that 3D over 2D is the key. When I first tried on a headset, and watched a video from up high, my fear of heights kicked in. Now I'm almost completely immune to that effect, but I still routinely do things like try to set a tool down on a virtual table. I suspect VR will be good for hands-on training (where it's more about the sequence than the "feel" of it) and psychological training (how to deal with an angry customer), but maybe the psychological benefit wears off like my body's reaction to being up high in VR.
- loup-vaillant 8y ago
  Have you tried to test your fear of height in real conditions recently? I'm wondering if the desensitization you experienced in VR have effects in real life.
  - scott_ci 8y ago
    I just went on a zip line for the first time, and climbing their tallest ladder was pretty unnerving. I don't have a great fear to begin with, but my the wow-I'm-really-hear effect has definitely gone down. Maybe if I had done that exact zip line in VR, it would have helped? I do believe VR can help with phobias and PTSD (http://www.virtuallybetter.com/ http://www.virtuallybetter.com/), but I wonder if its benefit goes down with exposure (complete speculation!).
loup-vaillant 8y ago
> VR maybe the future of education. This implies having children using these headsets for extended periods of time. I hope the (auto?) calibration of future headsets gets real good, otherwise I fear there are some risks, messing with the eyesight of children. Potentially awesome, sure. Just, not too fast.
Fellshard 8y ago
I'm curious whether it will be a deeper problem for propaganda, though. Would it affect memory even more to be able to recall visceral memories of an event as seen in VR, when that event has never actually occurred, say?
kolderman 8y ago
VR is dying like 3D TV...expect lots 'o shills to be out selling the message.
- aphextron 8y ago
  VR is not dying. It's a new technology that is under active development. Magic Leap just released their first dev kit last month. StarVR has a new HMD coming out with 210 degree FOV. Oculus is working on a standalone wireless HMD. Things are actually progressing much quicker than anyone thought back in 2014 when the "VR renaissance" got started. We now have wireless HMDs, eye tracking with foveated rendering, perfect sub-millimeter inside-out camera based tracking, and the first multi-plane displays (on Magic Leap One). None of that tech even existed 4 years ago, or if it did it was in a university research lab. We're now less than 5 years away from having a slim, lightweight, wireless device that you can put on your face and have 100% nonstop presence. There are still things to solve like haptics and locomotion which will be decades away, but the visual component is totally solvable with current tech.
wpietri 8y ago
I would be interested to see what you say after a couple hundred hours. VR has a very strong novelty effect. I thought it was incredible and amazing the first times I used it. And then, as it became no longer novel, I just gradually stopped. I'll note that "3D is the future of education!" has a long history. Stereoscopic photos were the future starting in the 1850s. During WWII, the US Department of Defense bought 100,000 View-Masters and millions of reels because 3D content was more effective and engaging for training. But somehow those futures never happened. This one could well end up in the same historical category.

arkitaip 8y ago

We now know that tech isn't an high impact factor when it comes to learning quality. This is based on John Hattie's profound research work covering 1200 meta studies: https://visible-learning.org/hattie-ranking-influences-effect-sizes-learning-achievement/ https://visible-learning.org/hattie-ranking-influences-effec...

TaylorAlexander 8y ago
That seems like a very broad statement. I played with VR a few years ago, and found the notion of an immersive virtual environment to be profoundly different from looking at something on a computer screen. Some technology absolutely helps with learning. Pencils and paper are technology that help us write down our thoughts. School buildings and chalkboards are technology that make it easy for us to meet and collaborate. Computers too can provide an opportunity for us to play with abstract concepts. Immersive VR could be a way to better understand certain concepts. With the right presentation, I think VR could be a more effective way of learning than other methods.
mikeash 8y ago
I don’t think you can treat “tech” as a general category. VR headsets are totally different from smartboards which are totally different from graphing calculators. Maybe VR headsets will be useless too, but I don’t think you can extrapolate that.
- leetbulb 8y ago
  I agree. VR is a completely new interface for us with technology and we have yet to even discover the tip of that iceberg.

jlg23 8y ago

If your subject benefits from a 3d representation at all. I dare to say: most do not, just as most do not benefit from video. I think the real revolution in teaching will be when we have enough well educated, well paid teachers. Imagine the level of immersion that could be accomplished with real-time individualized lessons!

shafyy 8y ago
True. And VR allows new school models with a wildly different cost structure than today's. You don't need a physical building, no physicial equipment and geographic location doesn't matter. In addition, because VR makes project-based learning [0] more scalable, a teacher's time can be used more efficiently. These cost-savings can be passed on to the students and the teachers (in the form of higher salaries). All this while improving average the education quality. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project-based_learning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project-based_learning
- lostlogin 8y ago
  This sounds terrible to me. The process of learning, particularly when young, isn’t just about having the information fed to you. It’s about trying, failing and being shown where you went wrong. Quite literally, falling and being helped up. How do you get help diverse problems like handwriting, getting on with others and the millions of other situations teachers help with? Empathy via Facebook sounds bad. A big problem with education in my opinion is that everyone who has been to school sees themselves as a teaching expert. The near-minimum-wage teacher who buy school supplies out of their own pockets, they are the experts. Rant over.
  - shafyy 8y ago
    Completely agree. And my whole point is that you can do that better in VR. Instead of meeting in the real world, meet in VR and learn there together with your friends and teacher.
    - 8y ago

FLUX-YOU 8y ago

Anything that requires hand/eye coordination is waiting on a good VR implementation. I would totally pay $60 for a VR game that has you building a house from the ground up or doing woodworking in as much detail as possible (even if it's individual stages and tasks without a proper physics sandbox).

rixrax 8y ago
For building a house it should then also include the role playing aspect of dealing with building departments, inspectors, and contractors that don't show up or drill into wires that electrician had just installed. ;-)

nikofeyn 8y ago

can you elaborate? because nothing you mentioned has anything to do with education. the expected use of VR in education reminds me of the failure of nearly every other forced use of technology in education. my mom was a teacher, and i clearly remember the required use of powerpoint to be a major detriment to her teaching. as another example, i was horrified recently during a volunteer opportunity at a local high school at the use of chromebooks in the classroom. it seemed like such a blind use that served no purpose other than to further seaparate the students and teachers from social interaction and communication. i think something like dynamicland is the only technology that has promise to be used as an educational tool.

isaiahg 8y ago
Just like it's hard to explain how it feels in VR is hard to explain the difference here. I think the big take away is that it lets you simulate tasks physically instead of just watching them being done. Like the difference between watching something being done and doing it. I know with me, physically doing things with my hands cements the material in my brain way more than reading about it. One thing I can see this being used for is fork lift driver training. You could put the person in the seat of the heavy and expensive equipment without actually risking anything. The user can play around with the controls and make mistakes without the fear of breaking something. That alone would be valuable.
- scott_ci 8y ago
  there's a company that focuses on this: http://www.forklift-simulator.com/ http://www.forklift-simulator.com/
wongarsu 8y ago
I don't think it will help much in teaching math or anything else that can be easily learned from a textbook. But you can't learn plumbing or operating a crane from a textbook, and here VR has great potential. It might also be great for teaching science, since VR can communicate scale much better than drawings.
- 8y ago

eksemplar 8y ago

I think VR will be the future of a lot of things. I used to think it was sort of fad, like 3D movies but maybe a little cooler. Then our GIS department bought one and I’ve tried it a few times now. I always feel constrained when I go back to my two monitors. The interface and technology in general has some way to go, but I think VR will be the biggest tech revolution in my lifetime and I’ve been around since before the refrigerator was a common thing.

rocky1138 8y ago
I'm really glad to hear that you enjoy VR. I have a similar feeling when using BigScreen to do work. All I really need is like twice the resolution so that text is clearer and we can essentially have unlimited scalable desktops.
- isaiahg 8y ago
  Legible text that you can read without squinting and tracked keyboards will be the floodgate moment I think. I'd really like to see how an IDE can evolve in VR space, especially with collaborate features. It could probably make online offices a regular occurrence.
  - atonalfreerider 8y ago
    primitive.io is an IDE designed for VR
    - applecrazy 8y ago
      How does keyboard input work? Does it track the position of the keyboard and then show a digital equivalent in VR? Because I think most people can’t touch type essentially blindfolded.

scott_ci 8y ago

As someone who develops VR on a daily basis, I'm skeptical that 3D over 2D is the key. When I first tried on a headset, and watched a video from up high, my fear of heights kicked in. Now I'm almost completely immune to that effect, but I still routinely do things like try to set a tool down on a virtual table. I suspect VR will be good for hands-on training (where it's more about the sequence than the "feel" of it) and psychological training (how to deal with an angry customer), but maybe the psychological benefit wears off like my body's reaction to being up high in VR.

loup-vaillant 8y ago
Have you tried to test your fear of height in real conditions recently? I'm wondering if the desensitization you experienced in VR have effects in real life.
- scott_ci 8y ago
  I just went on a zip line for the first time, and climbing their tallest ladder was pretty unnerving. I don't have a great fear to begin with, but my the wow-I'm-really-hear effect has definitely gone down. Maybe if I had done that exact zip line in VR, it would have helped? I do believe VR can help with phobias and PTSD (http://www.virtuallybetter.com/ http://www.virtuallybetter.com/), but I wonder if its benefit goes down with exposure (complete speculation!).

loup-vaillant 8y ago

> VR maybe the future of education. This implies having children using these headsets for extended periods of time. I hope the (auto?) calibration of future headsets gets real good, otherwise I fear there are some risks, messing with the eyesight of children. Potentially awesome, sure. Just, not too fast.

Fellshard 8y ago

I'm curious whether it will be a deeper problem for propaganda, though. Would it affect memory even more to be able to recall visceral memories of an event as seen in VR, when that event has never actually occurred, say?

kolderman 8y ago

VR is dying like 3D TV...expect lots 'o shills to be out selling the message.

aphextron 8y ago
VR is not dying. It's a new technology that is under active development. Magic Leap just released their first dev kit last month. StarVR has a new HMD coming out with 210 degree FOV. Oculus is working on a standalone wireless HMD. Things are actually progressing much quicker than anyone thought back in 2014 when the "VR renaissance" got started. We now have wireless HMDs, eye tracking with foveated rendering, perfect sub-millimeter inside-out camera based tracking, and the first multi-plane displays (on Magic Leap One). None of that tech even existed 4 years ago, or if it did it was in a university research lab. We're now less than 5 years away from having a slim, lightweight, wireless device that you can put on your face and have 100% nonstop presence. There are still things to solve like haptics and locomotion which will be decades away, but the visual component is totally solvable with current tech.

wpietri 8y ago

I would be interested to see what you say after a couple hundred hours. VR has a very strong novelty effect. I thought it was incredible and amazing the first times I used it. And then, as it became no longer novel, I just gradually stopped. I'll note that "3D is the future of education!" has a long history. Stereoscopic photos were the future starting in the 1850s. During WWII, the US Department of Defense bought 100,000 View-Masters and millions of reels because 3D content was more effective and engaging for training. But somehow those futures never happened. This one could well end up in the same historical category.