Virtual Reality Learning
by Paul "the soaring" Siegel
How is the Internet changing the face of education? By advancing learning instead of teaching.
"Teaching, in my estimation, is a vastly overrated function..... I see the facilitation of learning as the aim of education."
This is my favorite quotation by Carl Rogers, the eminent educator.
How does one facilitate learning? By getting the student thoroughly involved. On the Internet we obtain involvement through interactivity, sharing, and virtual reality.
Teaching
Most of us have been subjected to classroom teaching. The teacher, in effect, says: This is how it is. This is the way to go. Follow me."
This approach has been adopted by the many outfits producing training videos of all sorts.
It is also being followed on the Internet by professors offering online courses, and companies giving safety presentations to firemen about hazardous materials, or health messages to patients and doctors.
Interaction
IBM Canada has a simulation to help managers develop coaching skills. Coaching is hard to teach the usual way. The simulation enables students to become thoroughly involved in the act of coaching. Furthermore, they may see results and then modify their actions to improve.
Simulations have been adapted to the Net. nVestor (http://investorsleague.com) has a simulation to help visitors learn how to invest money in the stock market.
Sharing
Napster is about sharing. Napster got a bum rap because record companies attacked it for encouraging stealing. A sign that some record companies are reassessing their attitudes appeared in the L.A.Times of November 1, 2000, which brought the news that Bertelsmann is financing Napster, and that Napster will find a way to reward artists for their work - probably by a subscription approach.
The reason teenagers share music selections is not for learning. But if you think about, they learn a lot about different types of music and artists and techniques through sharing.
Though the learning may not seem great when sharing music, it is the main reason for the development of the Grid Physics Network. The University of Chicago and the University of Florida have formed the Network so that researchers from 16 universities may share scientific data. And as you know, physicists and other scientists work with voluminous amounts of data. These scientists learn from each other through sharing. They call the Network the "Napster for Researchers."
Virtual Reality
Stephen McWilliam, V.P. of Astound, offers statistics about the degree of retention of learned material as a function of the medium use:
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Read
Visual
Audio
Visual & Audio
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10%
20%
30%
70%
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In other words, the greater the number of senses involved, the greater the retention. With virtual reality we may obtain a tremendous degree of involvement, and thus greater learning and retention.
Gompanies today are creating learning programs with the aid of animated personalities or action figures that may be manipulated.
University of Texas has developed a learning environemt, which they call enCore Express. Students may move icons around, and professors may insert special learning modules. Hundreds of variations of this learning environment (which is called MOO, for Multi-Object Oriented environement) have been devloped.
The Internet has been criticized for not being immediate and "real." By means of virtual reality techniques, learning online may become more "real" than learning offline. Greater possible student involvement is the reason.
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