Virtual Reality
An emerging new medium - maybe the last medium!
physically
… and engaging!
emotionally
Remember point of view?
In VR point of view is your choice. You are the active force in the telling of a story. No other medium frees you from the tyranny of a director’s eye like VR does, and no one has really gotten a handle on it yet!
IMMERSIVE
TACTILE
KINETIC...
How virtual reality can create the ultimate empathy machine
How will education evolve when we have immersive, emotionally powerful, first person experiences on hand? Students won’t theorize about what it was like to walk on the Moon, or storm the beaches of Normandy, or be told to give up their seat on a bus in Alabama; these things will feel like lived experience.
How we got into VR...
I teach computer technology, it’s always changing. If we’re not going to boldly go where no one has gone before, I should be teaching something else.
It’s emerging technology, there’s no right way to do it yet, barely anyone is… that’s why we wanted to do.
I never get tired of bragging about my students...
How you build a VR PC when there are no instructions?
Spring ‘16
First we threw the book at it: Intel i7extreme, 16GB DDR4ram, SSD, Radeon R9 $1000 video card - our first PC cost over $3000 to build, and it’s still the fastest PC in our school.
Fall ‘16
By now VRready parts were on the market, so we built an Intel i5, 8GB DDR3 pc with an Nvidia 1060 card for $1400.
Today
We can build a VR ready PC for about $1200, we have an order for 7 in the fall.
What is a VR ready PC?
It needs graphic power! Both big video card manufacturers make VRready video cards nowadays, but I tend to go with AMD/Radeon because they are based in Markham. Your current best choices are the Radeon 500 series cards or the Nvidia 1000 series cards…
AMD FX or Intel i5 processors are mid-level and fairly cheap compared to the top end stuff. DDR4 is becoming common, but DDR3 ram works fine, get at least 8 gigabytes. We’ve run VR on regular hard drives, so only get an SSD if you have the budget, otherwise a modern hard drive does the business. Make sure you get Windows 10 with it - VR drivers are brand new and legacy drivers don’t exist for older versions of Windows.
Getting VR to work within Board IT networking
Getting allowances for blocked software was our main issue. Our board is building plug in-able domains for non-board imaged PCs, so that took care of the hardware, but you need STEAM to run HTC VIVE drivers, so we had to get each machine we built excepted to access it.
What software to use? There are free options!
Exploring a new medium
Student research into VR educational uses
More student research into VR educational software
… but those are months old now - new VR titles are coming out quickly:
Micro Cosmic Worlds: review
Finding help: Foundry10
If you’re interested in exploring VR there are a lot of online resources (and more each day).
Foundry10 is an industry supported educational research and outreach group based out of Seattle. They are brilliant. You will find all sorts of data on how VR affects learning as well as information on how to impliment everything from Google Cardboard to fully immersive systems like the Vive.
And then there were two:
Foundry10 helped us out by providing us with an Oculus. I selected it because we already had the Vive and we weren’t interested in doing the same thing twice.
How did the two compare? The Oculus was a second class citizen until they finally came out with hand controllers similar (but actually better) than the Vive’s. Both systems are comparably priced and functionally similar now.
Working out safety protocols:
On our first week up and running someone got hit in the mouth by the VR operator. The next day we had Les Nessman tape on the floor and a cordoned off area for immersion. We are stringent with how we run the systems with a PC operator running the computer and the VR operator working the system. Having a spotter is invaluable, you’re completely insensible to the world around you when you’re immersed in VR, as is cleanliness.
One thing led to another: from Board SHSM PC building to starting a local VR research community
Our board’s SHSM led implementation of VR created a community. That community of explorers joined together to create a grant request for student led research, which we got! The result was 2 elementary and 4 secondary schools working together.
Watching our ad hoc community become focused...
I’d applied for Ministry grants several times before without any luck, but I was surprised to learn our student led VR research grant was given the OK.
With money on hand for software, professional development, training and hardware, we were able to head off in a variety of directions. As each of our six schools discovered something, emails would circulate with how best to get something new working.
What we did with our research grant...
We got a Ministry funded student research grant and encouraged students to explore this emerging technology. The results were wide ranging which suggests that this technology might have curriculum wide benefits. These are some of those student driven research projects:
What do we do with this emerging, immersive technology?
Other student research looked into:
End of grant: here’s the research:
Arts & VR
https://share.oculus.com/app/the-night-cafe-an-immersive-tribute-to-vincent-van-gogh
Physiotherapy & VR
http://www.northeastern.edu/regamevrlab/
http://www.polygon.com/2016/12/29/14114516/virtual-reality-pain-management-vive-rift
Autism & VR
https://youtu.be/DgDR_gYk_a8 what it feels like to have a panic attack
End of grant: here’s the research:
Making connections with the autism support people in our schools, communities and at a board level makes sense considering how much is being done with VR & autism
Curriculum we could link to:
https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ456186 mathematics http://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1012049406877
Chemistry & Biology
https://devpost.com/software/chemistry-lab-vr https://devpost.com/software/chemistry-lab-vr http://cen.acs.org/articles/94/i17/Re-virtual-reality-chemistry.html
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.556.6123&rep=rep1&type=pdf http://thebodyvr.com/
English
http://www.keeptalkinggame.com/
General - Out of the box thinking.
http://mashable.com/2017/01/21/virtual-reality-dollhouse-htc-vive/#qmAD6jc8smq0
End of grant: here’s the research:
These are our Ministry learning artifacts: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B7yB-lWDwFaVN2NUTzBMdi1PakU?usp=sharing
Two of our grade 9s researched Oculus Medium. This model was the result of a lunch time spent working with it. This grade 9 hadn’t made a 3d model before.
Where we are now
Our VR research allowed us to build state of the art computer hardware and software, and develop the coop opportunities we needed to launch an ICT specialist high skills major program.
Our software engineering course produced two pieces of VR software this year.
How to VR?
We got into VR out of engineering curiosity, it has since been used as a tool for 3d modelling and software development.
We never had a problem with the ‘VR for media consumption’ thing because we use it as an engineering tool, but other teachers have struggled with making constructive use of it.
This is a problem with all edtech though. Until we start approaching technology use in learning with a pedagogical focus, we risk falling into a consumerist relationship with it.
Experiential learning does not have to mean a field trip
Equity, safety and environmental concerns often reduce experiential learning in our schools. As VR development continues we will see increasingly immersive medium offering more and more engaging experiences for our students.
Beyond the real world experiences offered in VR, we can also offer students experiences we never could before, from simulating historical events and fictional narratives to flying to Mars.
With a bit of imagination, it’s easy to see just how powerful this technology could be in teaching and learning.
How to get started in VR: Google it up...
Google Earth VR...
Oculus Free Software
The future of VR...
What will you do with immersive media in your classroom?