Education and Community in XR: An Interview with Michael McCready of Lethbridge College
#1) How would you describe your role at Lethbridge College and your activities in XR more broadly? What are you most proud of so far?
I am one of the instructors in the new Virtual and Augmented Reality Certificate program at Lethbridge College. We have a team of three amazing instructors with various backgrounds that are forging the path in XR education. I’m also the President’s Applied Research Chair in Virtual and Augmented Reality. In this research role, my goal is to work with industry to identify opportunities for collaboration and develop XR solutions to improve the safety and bottom line of organizations. I’m proud that Lethbridge College has consistently been leading in the XR space. Some of the activities where Lethbridge College has led in the XR space include:
· Organizing Merging Realities, the world’s first full-day conference held in VR with participants from 86 cities
· Hosting successful VR book clubs held in AltspaceVR with authors such as Blake Harris and Charlie Fink joining us
· Launching one of Canada’s first college VR/AR programs with a full intake and a waitlist
· Planning the Lethbridge College Global VR Forum at INVENTURES in June 2019 that had over 200 people visit our VR day
#2) As a lot of your work has been dedicated to education and community centered around XR, could you tell us why these components are so important to the emerging medium?
Education and community are probably the most effective applications of XR technology. The presence that is achieved can reduce geographic distances and truly transport a user into the same room as a person thousands of miles away. The social benefits of VR are just beginning to be uncovered. From an education perspective, no other recent technology has the potential to revolution education as XR does. Whether a user is transported to another time and place or having their surroundings augmented with digital content, a learner can experience and learn in ways never before possible.
#3) What lit your interest in VR specifically? Was there a VR experience that inspired you to work in VR or an encounter with the VR community? What was that moment for you?
My first encounter with the idea of VR was when I watched Lawnmower Man in the 90s. While the concept portrayed in the movie is currently not possible and highly unlikely, the idea of being transported to another place intrigued me.
My first experience with VR was a number of years ago when I played a turret simulator where you pull the HMD down over your head and physically turned around shooting enemies. From a development standpoint, I decided three years ago to teach basic VR game design in one of my college courses. We used Unreal Engine 4 and built the games for Gear VR.
The largest ‘aha’ moment I had though was in 2018 when I organized Merging Realities. We had people from 86 cities around the world participate and garnered a ton of interest — locally and globally. This was the catalyst for the creation of the VR/AR program at Lethbridge College.
#4) I imagine you have been in a wide range of VR experiences. To your mind, what makes a VR experience successful or worthwhile? Likewise, what kind of team is best suiited to build these apps?
If you think of some of the most popular VR experiences available right now, on the surface, they are fairly simple. Some that come to mind are Beat Saber, Medium, Super Hot, and Pistol Whip. While the concepts in these VR apps, and others, are simple on the surface, they involve a number of components that make them successful. Audio cannot be overlooked. Audio is a staple in Beat Saber, but should be in all VR experiences. Audio can solidify the experience and instil emotion.
Another concept to be considered are the interactions. How a person can interact with elements in the VR experience should feel natural and, when done well, can reinforce presence.
When thinking of a team that is best suited to build these apps, the ideal team is multidisciplinary and should consist of people with the following skills: audio design, 3D, programming, user experience (UX) designer and a project manager. These skills do not need to be filled by separate people, but should be present on a team.
#5) What about VR for research? How do you know VR is the best fit to answer a research question?
VR isn’t always the best answer for a problem. A starting point when first evaluating if VR is a viable solution, I refer back to work done by Jeremy Bailenson where he describes optimal uses for VR. If something in the physical world is dangerous, impossible, counterproductive or expensive, it may make sense to recreate the experience in VR. As far as VR being the best fit for a research solution, it comes down to what are you trying to accomplish or answer. You should always start with the end in mind and then work backwards.
#6) Since you have XR education programs at Lethbridge, you must feel that in-person education has some advantages over learning online. Could you share some of those advantages?
I definitely see benefits to both, but there is something to be said about learning in-person. There are number of ways a person can learn how to develop VR experiences online, some of which are free, but it takes a certain kind of person to be able to do this. For example, I took part in a 6-month online VR developer course and if it wasn’t for my many years of web coding experience, I would have severely struggled. Some of the benefits of learning to develop VR in-person at Lethbridge College include:
· Learning in a cohort: access to a group of students all learning the same thing is very powerful and provide support and additional expertise.
· Trained instructors: in-person learning allows you access to experienced instructors who can guide and mentor you along the way.
· Industry connections: while many people can learn online through YouTube or other sources, in-person learning can provide access to industry experts which can offer job opportunities, mentoring, curriculum advice and more.
· Hardware: XR hardware can be expensive and can limit a person’s ability to learn to develop if they don’t have access to required hardware. Learning in-person can often provide the learner with access to expensive XR hardware.
#7) How would you encourage someone who is just starting out in XR to learn?
There are number of ways to get started, many have no cost. Here are some things you can do:
· The first thing that I would do is join some XR communities on Facebook or other social networks.
· Start following XR professionals on Twitter or LinkedIn and reach out to them. The XR community is very, very supportive and will be willing to help out.
· Download Unity or Unreal Engine (both are free) and explore the software.
· Access some free resources online. Unity has partnered with Oculus to offer a free online course. You can also find a number of great resources on YouTube.
· I would also suggest, if possible, that you find an in-person option as well as they offer a number of benefits over online learning (as mentioned earlier).
#8) How can someone thrive in VR financially? Do most people find jobs in tech firms, do contract work, or sell their own apps? Have you seen some examples of people taking their education in XR and successfully turning it into a career?
This is the million dollar question. I think many people are hoping for a success story like Beat Games (makers of Beat Saber) have experienced. I think the majority of work right now will be contract work with development firms. Although, this is changing. I’ve used the analogy a lot comparing the current state of VR to where the Internet was in the 1990s. Back then, not everyone had a website and if you were in the Internet industry, you likely worked for a firm. Fast forward to today and everyone is online. In fact, if you’re not on the first page of Google, you may as well not exist. Many, many organizations have their own web developers and in some cases, an entire team. The same is true for XR developers. The demand is increasing for XR developers. This is largely driven by organizations implementing more VR for education and training scenarios.
