Technology in Education — What is Next? (part 1)

Being a vital sector, education has always attracted the focus of the technology sector for the development of new tools and methodologies to improve the educational quality and ease the information access. The use of technology in the process of learning and teaching has improved the way in which students learn throughout the years. Including but not limited to these few examples:

• The introduction of overhead projectors (1960) allowed instructors to use reusable printed notes.
• The establishment of the public broadcasting system in the U.S (1970) brought educational TV programs into classrooms and homes.
• In the late 70’s and early 80’s, desktop computers were introduced to schools, however, the high cost prevented its widespread.
• With the widespread of internet and the launch of YouTube (2004), educators started to use and share educational videos.

With the high pace the consumer electronics sector is evolving, producing more efficient and cheaper devices (computers, phones, tablets … etc) everyday. What can the future possibly hold that could further educational proficiencies even more?

Virtual Reality (VR)

VR is considered to be a disruptive technology. It has the potential to transform how we interact with almost every aspect of our lives. It is believed to be as transformative as the smartphones. It was introduced decades ago, but it needed big and expensive equipment which prevented its wide adoption. Nowadays, the advanced computers and graphical processors have brought down the cost and enabled VR technology with light equipment, and that doesn’t seem to be stopping anytime soon. So, the cost of the hardware are going down and the software development cycle is running. In few years, VR would be a daily-used technology.

Let’s define what we mean by VR. It is a medium or a computer interface technique where a 3D graphics is presented, taking into account the real life three dimensional space. Where the user can explore the surrounding space in several ways through viewing, hearing and possibly interacting.

VR is characterized by three basic differentiating elements:

• Immersion: the user has the real sensation of being inside the virtual world of the computer, through the headsets and the computer.
• Interaction: the user manipulates virtual objects with the help of the controllers.
• Involvement: exploring of a virtual environment, it’s as if the user took part of the virtual world and he can interfere directly in result of the application, the user can navigate on the virtual environment in an active way and interact with the surroundings and see the results of this interaction immediately.

So, virtual reality is believed to have a huge potential in different markets and industries. It is not only effective in gaming industry, but it can change the way we teach and learn too.

LIVIT studios is a startup specialized in the VR software development in educational sector. We develop interactive, scientific and fun VR educational experiences.

Hope you liked it, we will continue this and discuss how VR can be used in education and design considerations taken in LIVIT’s VR experiences in following stories.