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What If We Changed The World By Doing This...

LadiesMan2I7
Honored Guest
Hey there strangers,

First, I always had a problem with education. I believe Oculus will be able to revolutionize this. It was a crazy idea I had and I just wanted to share this with Oculus and the community to see what y'all think. Any criticisms are welcome.

Now, education is essential to human life. We all want it and need it. But, what's the problem with education? It's outdated, especially the way schools teach students. Textbooks, written exams, and all those other meaningless theories and equations that we are supposed to absorb in just a few months or so. The worst part is that most subjects in schools are done in paper. We're expected to understand these "things" they teach us when all we are taught to do is take in the truckload of information and jot them down on a piece of paper. Don't get me wrong, I did relatively fine all throughout my years as a student until now. But, it just seems wrong. It seems inefficient. And I kept thinking that there must be a better way than to aimlessly sit in class and listen to teachers talk about things THEY'RE interested in.

What's worse: we're replicating the exact same traditional, broken, and inefficient method of learning and passing them down onto our predecessors (future generations).

We can enhance learning with virtual reality, although I'm not really sure how specifically.
We learn and understand more effectively not when we're merely listening to some random person talk. Instead, when we actually feel it in real life.
People don't become great at certain things by just reading books and listening to lectures. We are great learners when we go out there and actually apply what we've learned.

Understandably, schools do not have the luxury to provide such experiences. But...

What if, Oculus (or as I would like to call it "Ed Oculus") revolutionizes the way we learn. This wouldn't apply to all subjects, unfortunately (I think): such as subjects like Linguistics, Math, Economics, International Theories, and many more require that traditional mode of learning (at least that's what I think). On the other hand, courses like Science, History, Modern Era, International Relations, Diplomacy, Business Administration, Marketing, and Public Relations have potential. Imagine reading history textbooks as a kid. You're not going to understand what it was like for Martin Luther King Jr. to stand up for human rights back then unless you are actually there. You won't exactly know what the concepts of Social Constructivism are teaching you unless you can visualize it. Most college students don't know what it's like to be in the real world as a salesperson or a diplomat. You won't know how an actual company's sales forecast is developed by just reading the definition of it or looking at graphs. It helps a lot when you are virtually there and actually doing it. VR can provide that exact everyday experience (obviously, some portion of learning will have to come from physically writing down notes and listening to lectures. But not all).

Now, all of this might not be applicable yet. It may not be the right timing. Maybe not even in actual schools or homes, because of so many other reasons.
But think about it. 25, 50, 100 years down the road. Do you still think this will be THE way for your children and grandchildren?
Until then, Oculus can create an independent online platform that provides educational services. VR Courses to those that already possess the product. 

Anyways, it was just a random idea - a rough draft, at least.
Thought it'd be great if we can actualize this in the future and finally be the answer to this malfunctioning education system.

So.. what do you think?
12 REPLIES 12

Techy111
MVP
MVP
I said I disagree but there is "some" room somewhere for VR. We mustn't forget young eyes which will be the biggest block to using headsets. But @kojack might be the man best suited to comment on this as he has some close ties with VR and education.
A PC with lots of gadgets inside and a thing to see in 3D that you put on your head.

LadiesMan2I7
Honored Guest
@Techy111 What do you mean “young eyes”?

Techy111
MVP
MVP
Young children's eyes are not strong enough for VR is what I meant.
A PC with lots of gadgets inside and a thing to see in 3D that you put on your head.

LadiesMan2I7
Honored Guest
I see, well this may be just an assumption. But won't there be technology where Oculus provides optic protection and safety by the time it is fully developed and its software runs smoothly? If not, yeah I guess that would be an issue we have to solve. Nevertheless, it was a proposal directed towards more than just young kids.

kojack
MVP
MVP
The young eyes thing is because VR disrupts the way human eyes normally work. We use vergence (diverge and converge, when your eyes rotate inwards or outwards) and accommodation (focus) to detect distances. They are tightly coupled, normally they auto adjust to match each other quickly. But VR breaks that by having fixed accommodation and variable vergence that don't match. Childrens's eyes are still learning how to see correctly, the theory is that too much VR could hurt that.


Techy111 said:

But @kojack might be the man best suited to comment on this as he has some close ties with VR and education.


Well, I don't teach WITH vr, I teach VR development. 🙂
I've never tried actually using VR itself as an educational tool.

But I see VR as immensely useful for certain areas of education. In particular history and learning about other places. Kids getting to look at the great pyramids in 1:1 scale, seeing photogrammetry captured artifacts up close that are normally kept in overseas museums, exploring the ISS in zero G. I think the ability to experience other places without leaving the classroom is far better than just looking at a picture in a book or watching a video on a projector.
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sford52
Heroic Explorer
Jigspace and Google Earth VR are pretty nice learning/exploration apps.
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hoppingbunny123
Rising Star
they should tailor education to match job requirements. teach the job at the same time as the education in school, math, science, literacy, etc, so the job is paired with the education so after finishing education they have a trade they can go to work right away and get money and everyone is happy.. if your not going to be a scientist get trained to cook, mechanic, cut hair, etc, along with basic literacy in math and english.

Richooal
Consultant
Sorry, I voted no.

VR and AR aren't going to change the education world overnight, but they will filter through into almost everything we do. You're right to say that being able to visualise things is better than just being told by a "random teacher", but it can only be a part of learning (a bit like a field trip).

I like paper. I read somewhere that if you want information to stay in your "long term" memory, you need to use it 6 times. So, for example, you might hear your educator say it, you then write it down in note form on paper. You then read it, and write it out in full. After this you may read it again or tell someone about it, or both. Each time it digs deeper into your memory.
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Dear Oculus, If it ain't broke, don't fix it, please.

Anonymous
Not applicable

kojack said:

The young eyes thing is because VR disrupts the way human eyes normally work. We use vergence (diverge and converge, when your eyes rotate inwards or outwards) and accommodation (focus) to detect distances. They are tightly coupled, normally they auto adjust to match each other quickly. But VR breaks that by having fixed accommodation and variable vergence that don't match. Childrens's eyes are still learning how to see correctly, the theory is that too much VR could hurt that. 


That is - until we get veritable convergence witch has been shown off with HD - so while that might be true for now, it wont hold for long in terms of how close we are. Short of that - VR should be access across age limits once more study is done using said changes if not help improve children's eyes as corrective lensing could be used to help that forward by early detecting if a child needs glasses or not. The machine they use to check your eyes is not much different than the tech needed to create veritable convergence in the first place (granted with better accountability). There was talks that - if cough early - human eyes could also change to get better when put into the correct lensing effect. Granted - I didn't get lucky 😜 but if it is true - being in VR could actually improve human eyes in the long run when used from a very young age. Again -  this is more forward thinking once the technology is there, but a real possibility though.

I said yes - but with a change. Instead of VR it self - we will see a mix use of AR/VR. In that - a device that can do both will offer tips and tricks using AR to help us learn on a subject we have trouble with and VR to enforce that learning such as learning how a engine works in AR and taking what we learn and applying it in VR to show how much you understand on how that engine works in a mobile T. Granted- there will be cheating always - but for the most part - it would remove the need for schools and thus lower the cost of education as a whole and on the communities that have to support them from taxes and resource use.

"""What's worse: we're replicating the exact same traditional, broken, and inefficient method of learning and passing them down onto our predecessors (future generations)."""

Unfortunately - that will always be the case as information moves faster than we can teach mass amount of people with. The smallest detail at this point can create massive amounts of differences. With a AR/VR system - you will have that be even more of a problem in terms of mass access to education. Not because our teaching methods are bad - but because - information is just soo fast that it be impossible to really keep up with it all. Humans have to specialize in a field already to really push the knowledge of that field forward. Being too generalize with information and you will be a jack of all trade master of nothing. Even though we can learn lots of short terms facts - but unless you use it every day - it just will simply not stick with someone for long anyways. Yet, we should still strive to better our selves in all directions if possible as that does make us a better well rounded in the world we live in. Aka, there is no perfect solution with out force idealistically that also has problems in it self (spread of bad or miss inform information or even bias information such as who was the bad/good guy point of view). Yet if we dont, then no one can question on what is really going on or how something might work in general like not to stick a fork in a microwave. Don't really need the science to understand not to do it - but the knowledge of DONT DO IT still needs to be learn. Same as NOT sticking your body parts into an electrical outlet and many more general ideas on a basic understanding on how it works - but not really HOW it works in detail. 

With that said - still - it be worth spending on the money on deploying a system that can benefit all humans with greater education even if they don't really use it everyday. Places like Africa that has a hard time even getting teachers out there would benefit from a AR/VR / current hardware limits of access to basic college level of education for its children. If everyone understands how to clean water and how to treat it - the less chance someone will use it for bath water and instead build something to split water use, grow food, or even find new methods that no one else has thought of. Granted - this is all a percent chance - nothing happens unless we make it happen - but it's just that one extra understanding that really pushes all of us to a understanding and to work together in the future.

As with anything though - it'll take time - there will be back lash from both a job and educational reasoning that will hold it up. But, as we move forward, I am sure it will be added to educational systems as we already can take note of some schools using VR to show off stuff like Google Earth, medical training, and vocational education such as manuals on how an engine works. From a taxs payer reasoning - it's cheaper to pay a few teachers than to - own school land, buildings, cooling/heating, food, up keep cost, etc. While offering to a larger scope of students as a whole more access to libraries of knowledge and providing faster information with changes/corrections than it would be to have to go out and teach - teachers - on the new information and enforce them to do so (aka, Pluto will no longer be a planet even though some still teach it as it is). This has other disadvantages though such as no longer communication and making friends like traditional schooling offers. In a world already with out faces into cell phone screens - this might create a problem later down the road. "Sorry, Dog ate my Oculus cable"