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Ask HN: Parents: Do your kids use VR?
Hey there parents :-)
We're building educational experiences for teenagers (13-16 yrs) and I'd like to learn more from you as we build out our product. We're currently offering project-based classes where students work in groups of five with a real teacher in there also, guiding the class. In our first class, their goal to build a rocket and escape a foreign planet.
1. Do you see this as an alternative to sending your kid to a local extracurricular class? Why?
2. What kind of experiences do you and your kid enjoy most (educational/games/movies/?)
Not posting our link right now because I'm doing this for research purposes and not promo. If you are interested in learning more, please message me :-)
- snazz 8y agoI think this would be a great compliment to a regular extracurricular. The small groups with a real teacher idea sounds much better than most MOOCs I’ve taken and the traditional online class format.
- shafyy 8y agoThanks! Yes, right now we're offering it as stand-alone classes, and parents can just book it for their kids on our website. We don't work with schools, currently. Our goal is to eventually offer a full curriculum that can be a full alternative to "physical" schools.
- matt_the_bass 8y agoCould this potentially be a school sanctioned enrichment activity during the school day? I’m thinking this could be a way for a small school system to add specialized electives to small groups of kids.
- shafyy 8y agoNever thought of that, but that sounds like a great idea. Thanks!
- itronitron 8y agoFor personal hygiene reasons I wouldn't want my kids using VR in school, but I might be okay with them connecting in from home. We have a VR setup at home and they each play at most two hours a week. Your first class idea sounds kind of cheesy for the 13-16 year old age range. A lot of your students will probably be experts at KSP and various online games such as Minecraft and Roblox and platforms like Discord and Steam. What is VR going to offer for the classroom environment that those do not already provide?
- shafyy 8y agoYeah it's not used in school, so no hygiene problems there. It's a project-based class and while their goal is to build a rocket, it's not a rocket simulator game like KSP. It's a project-based physics class. We didn't post the full syllabus yet, but the students will need to do research and collaborate to learn about the different parts of rockets, the science behind it, and build up intuition and reasoning for rockets. All while learning and repeating concepts in physics, chemistry and material science. Doing this in VR is great because it feels like you're really meeting with your team and working on stuff together. Plus in VR you can demonstrate scientific (and other) concepts that are usually very theoretical much better than on a 2D screen. The immersiveness leads to better learning outcomes. How old is your kid? Would you be interested in trying it out?