Mount Everest and Pluto all in one hour
now I don’t know about you but if that
was my next field trip
I’d be pretty excited now you might
think I’m crazy for saying something
like this as possible but there’s a
recent advancement in technology that’s
making amazing feats like this possible
it’s called virtual reality and it could
completely revolutionize the way that we
teach now I’ll give you a little bit of
background on myself I first learned
about VR when I saw the inside of the
2012 I immediately fell in love to
technology I thought was the coolest
thing and I wanted to make my own apps
for my own experiences so I went to my
little program in corner I learned
everything that I could about this
headset and then I made project after
project and many things I learned in the
end I had some pretty cool projects
about a child but it was hardly a native
heart
there were not only beginner friendly
tutorials at the time it was entirely
self-taught so I can’t imagine my
students being sort of thing and even
then I only got my first text if we are
two years ago because the technology
just wasn’t widely available so in this
current state VR FIRST Robotics it needs
to be more accessible and it needs to be
better understood now how do we solve
these problems well this is where the
first part of my work comes in my goal
was to make virtual reality more
accessible to students at my school and
to teach them how to program for these
headsets because ultimately they’re
going to be the ones most impacted by
these new technologies and if we expect
this to make a new curriculum we also
need
program for these and we also need
teachers have program for this because
they’re going to need to take to the
students tomorrow
not an easy task so to bring us a step
closer I’ve set up a virtual reality
programming course at my school where
students can experience virtual reality
for the first time if they’re anything
like me and they’re super enthusiastic
about this technology
I’ll also be teaching them how to make
their own apps for these headsets I
believe this is the first major step in
to bringing VR into the mainstream and
one of the reasons that I want to bring
VR into the mainstream is that I see
massive potential to revolutionize
education so the good thing about the VR
ecosystem is in addition to the headset
we have strapped to your face at all
times
you also have pain control in body
tremors the late interactive virtual
space so for example I could say fire up
a simulation of Mount Everest
I could walk around its summit I could
pick up a rock or a piece of snow or
something have a look at it I could
throw it away I could walk somewhere
else and if I wanted to be in time spit
Times Square boom I’m right there it’s
that easy and this interactive approach
can mean a lot of good for education
where we could actually solve the
problem of needing to engage students in
their lessons because I’m just there
just speaking from experience it’s
pretty cool to walk around a scale model
of the solar system imagine doing that
for your next visit five that’d be
pretty awesome
however we have introduced with one
other problem we need these apps we need
these resources if we’re going to
revolutionize education how are we going
to teach the students if they have
nothing to learn from now this might not
seem like a big problem you probably
think up some big company in Silicon
Valley we’ll probably do all this for us
but there’s more reason to be concerned
because
juice provides a bit of content even the
Internet these massive part of our lives
nowadays almost never got off the ground
because there were no resources there
was nothing on it people just didn’t
care that may seem crazy that could be
the fate of VR if we don’t
something soon so how do I solve this
problem this black with the content well
I was actually last year I was actually
making one of my projects and I was
considering two problems like how how we
fill this void of content and then it
came to me I should create a space in my
school where students can make their own
project like I was doing just then and
then they can learn from those
experiences and that’s what really
changes from a VR course to a VR Club
when a student has learnt the basics of
how the headset work I can assist them
in making their own project and then
they can go on to make the software
tomorrow this is a big step forward for
bi development I’m taking students of
today
so that they can become the developers
and teachers of tomorrow remember a new
technology is unavailable to us if we
fully embrace it virtual reality needs
content and it needs to be accessible
and understood if we’re going to help the students of tomorrow