Virtual reality: applications and emerging technologies

Technology learning is one of the most widely discussed issues within the education world today. This stems largely from the demand of individual students whose worlds have been surrounded by technology and technology concepts for the most of their lives. Today's student knows more about technology than their parents and really any generation of students that have come before them. The phrase "traditional teaching" has been given a whole new meaning in the age of information technology. (Levy, 1995, p. 22) Within the education arena several advances have demonstrated marked usability. (Sykes & Reid, 1999, p. 61) in this work the implications and many dimensions of virtual reality will be explored as a learning tool for use in education. Early analysis of the efficacy of virtual technology will be explored and implications for the future will be discussed.

Technology has always been a life altering force within human dynamics, and virtual technology is breaking new ground in its application in industry, entertainment and education. Within technology, many would say modern man has found the way to overtake the rest of creation and manipulate his own environment. Within virtual reality many would say modern man has found a way to learn and engage situations and environments otherwise unstable and even dangerous, without fear. Yet, it is also clear that with the advancing of technology there has been an even broader division of the rich from the poor and the educated and successful from the marginal. With the introduction of advanced telecommunications and other technology in public schools this division is beginning to be bridged. (Harkavy & Blank, 2003) Below is a graph which shows the advancement of technology in schools, up to 1999. It can be seen from this model that the sources for growth and development are varied and comprise a true community effort. This graph also shows that many more schools have advanced technology than in the past and that technology can be used for alternative learning practices, such as distance education, interactive technology learning and also, with additional added plug in technology virtual reality applications. There is no doubt that this is the wave of the future for schools, and in this case public schools, not just elite costly private schools, as one might think.

Through changes in technology new dimensions of human ability have been realized, not always at the benefit of the individual but most would argue for the benefit of the whole, as technologies usability and practicality continues to grow.

The foundational positive impact these advanced technology resources might have on students, both now and in the future makes the efficacy and effectiveness of the technology and all its possibilities a point of special concern and hopefully tangible outcomes-based judgments. (Holt, 1991) Often times the standard, traditional forms of teaching that have been foundational in the United States and other developed nations since the beginning of compulsory education are not engaging enough for the modern student to assist them in their educational endeavors. They need and demand more, at a constant pace through words, actions and flagging results in traditional models. Michael Clark, headmaster at a UK school using Virtual Reality technology, has a very poignant view on the issue of the use of technology, especially virtual reality within learning environments.

That is where the future lies... In the presentation and manipulation of information in as yet unknown ways.... Give the tools to the young: before they are conditioned; before they are seduced and bemused. Technology is too important for technologists just as education is too important to leave to educationalists. (1992:9) (Schroeder, 1996, p. 76)

With the advent of computer technology, the introduction of the internet and also a sometimes extreme exposure to technological advances, through media and television within their own lives students are demanding curriculum and learning exposures that engage their minds more wholly. (Director, John Bailey, "Student's in Today's Schools" (http://www.nationaledtechplan.org/)Virtual reality, along with virtual classrooms and distance education are some of the ways in which the educational world will realize the demands of these technologically advanced students, and in doing so may advance technology and creativity to new highs.

Applications of Virtual Reality for Learning / Practicality

Alternative learning techniques have in the past been slow growth models yet now more than ever before with corporate and community support children are exposed to technology that will change the way they learn or in some cases offer an avenue or learning technique that might be the only way that particular student could ever realize his or her potential. "Pupils' autonomy and their immediate sense of achievement in learning quickly to design worlds, seems to account for a large part of their enthusiasm for VR, especially compared with other school work. " (Schroeder, 1996, p. 75)

Within the scope of virtual reality to be discussed within this work there are two basic types of VR technology, immersion and PC-based systems, both have advantages and disadvantages which will be discussed further, with their relation to education technology but must be mentioned here as the applications below use these terms to describe programs. Research engaging the student has driven VR application to new heights:

Up until now, VR has only been used in a limited number of settings, aside from that of entertainment games. If training were to be included under the rubric of education, that would make education the second-largest area of VR application after entertainment. The use of VR in battlefield simulation and vehicle simulation, for example, probably accounts for more everyday VR applications than any other area, apart from games. (Schroeder, 1996, p. 69)

Yet, this is changing as partnerships and virtual technologies begin to infiltrate the educational system and demand attention as model programs often do. In a 1996 book on virtual reality the issue of education is discussed through an analysis of three school-based educational systems which have proven some things and have also garnered and incredible amount of attention from technology pioneers and educators alike.

A referring to schools, where so far there have been only a handful of pilot projects. These, however, have generated an enormous amount of interest, both from the media and from educators. We will focus on three education projects, the West Denton High School in Newcastle, the Shepherd School in Nottingham, and the Human Interface Technology Laboratory's summer school in Seattle. (Schroeder, 1996, p. 69)

Within the pioneer programs associated with Virtual reality there have been promising results that are highly regarded by professionals who believe in and practice student driven learning technologies.

Student driven learning seems to be at the core of the movement, "in education (at least in the case of the Seattle and West Denton projects), pupils were able to build their own worlds. " (Schroeder, 1996, p. 70) Students engaging in their own learning create worlds in which their assistants and teachers have just as much knowledge of the process as they do. The teachers and students have been afforded the opportunity to learn together, about the technology, its limits and its abilities, with little or no interference. While these creations are being put together students gain valuable self-esteem and feel a tremendous sense of self-control and accomplishment.

The first project to use VR in a classroom took place at the Human Interface Technology Laboratory (HITLab) at the University of Washington in Seattle in 1991...The idea of teaching with VR, in this case, was intended as "a first step in evaluating the potential of VR as a learning environment" (Bricken and Byrne 1992:1). (Schroeder, 1996, p. 70)

The application of the program was novel, as up to this point very little work had been done among this age group within the scope of virtual reality. So, student's exposure would be something akin to an advanced application of early computer programming curriculums that were popular in the late 1980s. No one was quite sure how these advanced technologies would be used by the students or what kinds of creations would result.

The format of the summer school consisted of week-long sessions during which pupils would spend four days building their virtual worlds on desktop computers and on the final day they would experience their worlds on the lab's immersive VR system. The summer school and other educational VR projects have been ongoing ever since, and the HITLab has now established a VR learning center. (Schroeder, 1996, p. 70)

As with the advanced telecommunications technology, now so widely spread across the educational world, the author of this work notes that the resources used for the project came from multiple sources, a community effort some would say.

The resources for the summer school project, apart from the HITLab and pupils' fees, have come partly from public institutions (the Pacific Science Center) and partly from the private sector (the U.S. West telephone company, a HITLab consortium member). (Schroeder, 1996, p. 70)

The structure of the program is complex but mainly revolves around the student driven learning that takes place when, each year the slate is wiped clean and new students engage in the developments of new virtual worlds.

The 1992 sessions, for example, consisted of approximately twenty-five pupils between 10 and 15 years of age who were mainly drawn from the Seattle area, plus about a dozen staff members.

The daily timetable was organized around activities such as computer graphics, electronic music, and VR itself. The end goal, however, was to build a virtual world. Pupils worked in small groups on the process of world-building and were encouraged to work as teams. (Schroeder, 1996, p. 70)

The technology for this system consisted of both the developmental tools, the PCs and special plug in technology and an immersive system, not afforded to all program trials but very useful here, as can be seen by the outcomes and the engaged student body of the program.

The equipment for building worlds was Swivel 3-D software (see Kalawsky 1993:211-212), and the immersive system consisted of a VPL system with a glove or hand-held 3-D mouse (see Figure 4.1). 3

Several features of this project deserve to be highlighted. One is that the process of learning how to build virtual worlds was achieved in a relatively short time. Pupils put together their worlds in less than a week. They were given an "allowance" of polygons and within this limit could build any world they liked. A sense of the kinds of worlds pupils built can be gleaned from the names they chose, such as Moon Colony, Mid-evil [i.e., medieval] Spacestation, and Neighborhood. When I had an opportunity to fly through some of these worlds in the lab, they appeared imaginative and contained many outlandish features. (Schroeder, 1996, p. 70)

In another student driven program discussed itn the 1996 book there is and example of a program developed without the use of an immersive technology system. Yet, the program still garnered a large amount of success and the student driven outcomes were just as impressive, though much more applicable to educational curriculum, probably as a result of the school-based rather than experimental-based system being used for the experiment.

A two desktop VR systems: the Virtus Walkthrough software to run on an Apple Macintosh computer and the Dimension Superscape Toolkit (the firm Dimension has since become Superscape), which runs on a customized personal computer supplied by Dimension and includes a spaceball as an input device (see Figure 4.2). 4

Both suppliers, especially Dimension, supported the project with staff and expertise, and have, in turn, been rewarded with considerable publicity from the project.

It needs to be emphasized that both VR systems in this case were of the desktop type, using a desktop personal computer with a mouse or a spaceball input device. (Schroeder, 1996, p. 72)

It is also noted by the author that the desktop systems did not impeded the use of VR as a developmental tool and did not alter student or instructor's perception of the program as a success, regardless of the inability to apply their work to immersive technology. The applications, or outcomes of the programs developed into technical and trade oriented training devises consisting of art and design programs and even a safety application for training future factory workers with lifelike precision how to avoid injury in a moving factory setting.

West Denton also has a number of pupils pursuing postsecondary diploma courses (Business and Technical Education Council Certificate or BTEC) in art and design. These pupils made up a large proportion of those using the VR systems. (Schroeder, 1996, p. 73) VR was intended for use in several areas of the curriculum -- language, for which a French virtual city was developed, and art and design, for which students created a virtual sculpture gallery. Yet the main project to reach completion in the summer of 1992 was the Dangerous Workplace world, a factory with moving machinery and forklifts. This world was built in collaboration with NEI Parsons, the sponsoring engineering firm, and was created particularly with a view to learning about safety at work. The collaboration involved pupils visiting the firm's factory to get a sense of the relation between the virtual world and the model on which it was based. NEI Parsons employees, in turn, were able to visit the school and work to help design the "factory."

(Schroeder, 1996, p. 74)

Video Games and Learning Technology

The third application shows the potential of the use of VR for alternative learning, for students with challenges beyond the standard student. The final application is demonstrative of how VR can be used to help developmentally challenged students overcome difficulty and even excel at communication, they might never have been afforded in a traditional model of teaching.

The Shepherd School employs the Makaton system of alternative communication, authored by Margaret Walker (1987), which is the standard system used in British special needs schools. The system uses hand signs and iconic symbols that stand for objects to teach language and communication concepts. It aims to develop communication skills among people with very different abilities and can be used in connection with a variety of learning disabilities, such as autism, mental retardation, specific language disorder, acquired neurological problems, and multiple sensory handicap. (Schroeder, 1996, p. 77)

The system Design is much like that of an early video game with the exception of the inclusion of much more realistic graphics and visual representations. The demonstration of the successful use of other types of technology as learning aides for students with special needs has been seen in other areas. Garnering experience from the application of the use of realistic media and entertainment technologies is expanded here through the use of VR technology.

The system consists of vocabulary and is designed to be taught through a series of stages with increasing complexity. Thus it tries to develop not only language skills but also more sophisticated general communication skills. At the Shepherd School, as at West Denton, the VR system is integrated with existing teaching methods and with the existing curriculum. The virtual worlds in this case consist of roomlike spaces in which different objects -- such as a mug, a ball, and a television set -- are displayed. The Makaton symbol for the object is displayed in another part of the room. If pupils succeed in matching the Makaton symbol with the object by navigating through the room, the thumbs up sign appears (see Figures 4.3, 4.4). (Schroeder, 1996, p. 77-78)

The project created a sense of accomplishment for students, teachers and partners with the use of a promising new tool for the application of new psychosocial theories being applied to special needs students all over the world.

In the case of VR use at the Shepherd School, it is important to touch briefly on the theories that underlie the processes of human learning. In recent years, cognitive psychology has emerged as the most prominent approach within this field. Moreover, with respect to language acquisition, the Piagetian perspective, which stresses the interaction between the individual and the external environment, has proved particularly useful (Jones 1995:250-252). It is also worth mentioning the relevance of debates about language, which revolve around the question of how pictures may best be used to acquire language skills. Without going into these theories or debates, 11 the point to note for our purposes is that Shepherd School pupils were able to exercise a sense of control in the virtual environment, since they could interact with the objects and icons on the computer screen. (Schroeder, 1996, p. 77-78)