Virtual Reality in the Classroom: My POV on VR

Greetings all and welcome to my 7 th entry focused on the emerging technology of virtual reality.  We have discussed the place of VR in a classroom, in industry, and at home as well as the developments, applications, and costs associated with it.  One thing we have yet to discuss is the first question that should have been asked, should we develop this technology?  While the answer to this question is obviously yes, given today’s social environment and technology driven…well, everything, some may posit that we spent so much time basking in the glory of what we could accomplish with this technology that no one ever stopped to wonder if we should.  We are all aware of the emphasis on technology development throughout a majority of the world, but I would like to focus on one nation for the purposes of this discussion, Korea.  I recently spent a year on assignment in Korea and I must say that when it comes to technology development, internet access, and the use o...

Greetings all and welcome to my 6 th entry focused on the emerging technology of virtual reality.  Thus far, we have explored the basics of VR, it importance in today’s society, how classrooms are currently using VR technology, VR costs and capabilities, and my own personal plans on how VR could be introduced throughout school systems.  Today, I would like to step outside of the classroom environment and see where VR technology is being used in industry. Several modern industries rely on VR technology for an array of purposes ranging from training and education to research and entertainment.   I found a great article that covers 21 different industries that are currently using VR tech at: https://virtualspeech.com/blog/vr-applications#:~:text=VR%20is%20being%20used%20in,them%20and%2For%20the%20characters.&text=VR%20could%20also%20revolutionise%20the%20way%20that%20media%20content%20is%20made . Reading this article was not only interesting and informative, but a...

Greetings,  My last post delved deeply into the costs associated with classroom VR introduction and your comments helped to spur my thoughts for this week's entry, and for that, I thank you all.   After my last entry, I was wondering what it would look like to begin to integrate VR into an entire school system and it occurred to me that it would ultimately bankrupt our educational system.  While private institutions may have a better prognosis, our public school systems that teach the majority of students would fall flat.   Therefore, I began thinking of an integration plan and then I read Pitt's response that talked about how the cardboard headsets may be appropriate for grade schoolers, but beyond that, they may not have much effect.  If we, as instructional designers, started there, with the elementary schools, I feel that we would have a much better shot at growing VR as an educational platform across the educational enterprise, over time.  Phase ...