4 ms·

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 geogra

by 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.
  - ericst 8y ago
    A big part of learning is also in the social interaction. VR, no matter how good, will just never match that. You don't only need information, you also need interactions, real life interaction... I think VR might help to some subjects, but having an all-VR experience seems an awful thing to me...
    - shafyy 8y ago
      > VR, no matter how good, will just never match that. Why not? > You don't only need information, you also need interactions, real life interaction What is reality?
    - wpietri 8y ago
      I think it's theoretically possible that one day VR might really be as good. But I also expect to be comfortably dead before that happens. I'll note that TV was seen as the future of education for quite a while. And that videoconferencing has been the future of interaction since the early 1980s. The first never worked out. And although the jury's still out on the latter, it's undeniable that a) it's not as good, and b) it's taken a very long time for the technology to be reasonably useful. Historically, people seem to confuse "we don't know what X can't do" with "there's nothing X can't do". Technoutopianism can be useful, in that optimistic people will try things out and discover where the limits are. The current wave of VR is interesting, but it's perfectly possible that it will end up in the same place as 1990s VR: a historically interesting wave of hype that turned out not to deliver much value that couldn't be gotten more easily with other approaches.
      - shafyy 8y ago
        Yeah it's easy to point at tech that never worked out. But it's also impressive to look at the tech that did work out and no one 50 years ago would have been able to predict where society is now. It's just more exciting to me to envision a future where VR will work out, and I will keep working on it under that assumption.
        wpietri 8y ago
        I think that's very dangerous. A lot of the tech that worked out only did so because the people working on it put users first, not technology first. A classic example here is Apple. They did not make the first personal computer, the first MP3 player, or the first smartphone. Those were made by people focused on the tech. Instead, Apple took mostly-existing tech and really focused on delivering value to users. I think a user-first attitude is important even when making consumer gadgets. But a student-first focus is vital for education. There are a zillion examples of educational tools and methods inflicted upon kids not because they were better for students, but because somebody wanted to prove something.

by shafyy 8y ago

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.
- ericst 8y ago
  A big part of learning is also in the social interaction. VR, no matter how good, will just never match that. You don't only need information, you also need interactions, real life interaction... I think VR might help to some subjects, but having an all-VR experience seems an awful thing to me...
  - shafyy 8y ago
    > VR, no matter how good, will just never match that. Why not? > You don't only need information, you also need interactions, real life interaction What is reality?
  - wpietri 8y ago
    I think it's theoretically possible that one day VR might really be as good. But I also expect to be comfortably dead before that happens. I'll note that TV was seen as the future of education for quite a while. And that videoconferencing has been the future of interaction since the early 1980s. The first never worked out. And although the jury's still out on the latter, it's undeniable that a) it's not as good, and b) it's taken a very long time for the technology to be reasonably useful. Historically, people seem to confuse "we don't know what X can't do" with "there's nothing X can't do". Technoutopianism can be useful, in that optimistic people will try things out and discover where the limits are. The current wave of VR is interesting, but it's perfectly possible that it will end up in the same place as 1990s VR: a historically interesting wave of hype that turned out not to deliver much value that couldn't be gotten more easily with other approaches.
    - shafyy 8y ago
      Yeah it's easy to point at tech that never worked out. But it's also impressive to look at the tech that did work out and no one 50 years ago would have been able to predict where society is now. It's just more exciting to me to envision a future where VR will work out, and I will keep working on it under that assumption.
      - wpietri 8y ago
        I think that's very dangerous. A lot of the tech that worked out only did so because the people working on it put users first, not technology first. A classic example here is Apple. They did not make the first personal computer, the first MP3 player, or the first smartphone. Those were made by people focused on the tech. Instead, Apple took mostly-existing tech and really focused on delivering value to users. I think a user-first attitude is important even when making consumer gadgets. But a student-first focus is vital for education. There are a zillion examples of educational tools and methods inflicted upon kids not because they were better for students, but because somebody wanted to prove something.