Category: Education

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Embodied Cognition & Using Social Structures for Collaborative Learning

erica-southgateThe concept of embodied cognition is a hot topic within immersive education circles, and was a featured topic at during the Embodied Learning educational workshop that happened at the IEEE VR academic conference. Embodied Learning could help revolutionize education by incorporating our bodies within the learning process.
We generally believe that humans think with our brains, but embodied cognition theories suggest that we also use our bodies and surrounding environments in order to think and learn. This has huge implications for VR since it both provides a mechanism to be able to more fully engage within the learning process as well as have more control of our contextual environments that are optimized to teach different concepts.

I had a chance to catch up with educator Erica Southgate from the University of New Castle at the Embodied Learning workshop this past March. She’s from the University of Castle in Australia and is using serious games and augmented reality to teach literacy. She’s exploring how to use social VR to enable high prestige professionals to mentor disadvantaged youth, and she’s also studying how indigenous cultures use social structures and knowledge holder rituals in order to train youth, and how this could inspire open world collaborative learning environments in VR.

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For more information on Embodiment Theory and Embodied Cognition, then be sure to check out my previous interviews about using dance to teach computational thinking, as well as with Saadia Khan and Embody Learning workshop keynote presenter Chris North.

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The post Embodied Cognition & Using Social Structures for Collaborative Learning appeared first on Road to VR.

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Stanford Researchers Give Us A Virtual Window Into Our Damaged Oceans

Stanford Researchers Give Us A Virtual Window Into Our Damaged Oceans

Often, shock value is crucial when inspiring people to act. The dangers of climate change are a difficult reality to get people behind because of its far-reaching effects that may not even surface during our own lifetimes, but Stanford researchers are utilizing virtual reality to spread carbon dioxide emission awareness. The Stanford Ocean Acidification Experience, available now for free on Steam, can take users underwater, show our coral reefs as they are now, and then take you forward to the end of the century to see what happens if we continue emitting carbon dioxide as we currently do.

Available on HTC Vive, the Stanford Ocean Acidification Experience doesn’t start in the water. Users can get a better understanding of how emissions affect our water by standing in traffic and following carbon dioxide molecules from cars to the sea. From that point, you’re guided by a narrator as you’re encouraged to note the changes to marine life over time.

“You’re not watching something, you’re doing it,” said communication Professor Jeremy Bailenson. “You learn by doing. These are magic, teachable moments.”

Often, shock value is crucial when inspiring people to act. On October 11th, 2016, a writer for OutsideOnline.com published an obituary for the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, explaining how humanity’s habits had killed it by way of climate emissions and acidification. The obituary went viral, although it was a bit fabricated. The Reef is not dead but is indeed dying and the viral event serves as a call to action. Hopefully, Stanford’s educational tool will be similarly inspiring when it comes to helping our ecosystems.

The Stanford Ocean Acidification Experience was developed by Professor Jeremy Bailenson and his Virtual Human Interaction Lab in collaboration with marine biologists Fiorenza Micheli and Kristy Kroeker. They also had help from Roy Pea, a professor at Stanford Graduate School of Education.

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Sharecare Acquires BioLucid to Bring Your Body into Virtual Reality With ‘YOU VR’

Sharecare Acquires BioLucid to Bring Your Body into Virtual Reality With ‘YOU VR’

Virtual realiy and augmented reality applications outside of entertainment are becoming more and more prevalent as companies learn the practicality, efficiency, and overall benefits of the technology. Just in the last few weeks, we’ve seen elevator technicians equipped with Hololens and electric and gas company PG&E is aiming to give their electricians safer havens to sort out issues though the use of virtually recreated substations. Now Sharecare is taking to VR to enhance their visual health care services.

Sharecare aims to give you a deeply informative look at your personal health through things like a web health profile and AskMD mobile application. Your profile gives you a home to track your habits and receive guidance through a slew of resources, like Sharecare health challenges, ASKMD consultations, and habit quizzes, so you can embrace a healthy lifestyle.

YOU VR (shown in the video above) is taking this ideal to a new extreme, giving professionals an intimate and personal look into the bodies we inhabit through virtual reality. 2D video and textbooks are incredibly informative, no doubt, but stepping into a virtual heart to see how a heart functions or malfunctions can pay dividends for students, professors, healthcare providers, and, most importantly, patients.

In September, Sharecare acquired the VR company BioLucid. BioLucid created the 3D YOU platform that Sharecare will be bringing to VR, AR, and 360° videos. “By differentiating our platform with BioLucid’s immersive simulation of the human body, we can turn data into actionable, visual intelligence, and make a transformative impact on patient engagement, health literacy, medical education and therapy adherence,” said Sharecare CEO Jeff Arnold when addressing the acquisition.

Sharecare is also bringing a visual experience to their web profile via Sharecare Reality Lab. A living avatar is in its beta phases, changing as a person’s health shifts. BioLucid is providing YOU VR strictly to pharmaceutical or medical companies, healthcare systems, consumer-facing healthcare companies, and educational institutions. Get in touch on their website.

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MEL Science Bolsters Their VR/AR Learning Tool With $2.5 Million

MEL Science Bolsters Their VR/AR Learning Tool With $2.5 Million

Hands-on experiences can often provide better results when it comes to education, deeply embedding the knowledge and processes within the student. Some things will stick when reading and absorbing information tossed at a large group, but some subjects certainly require action. MEL Science embraces this ideal fully, providing a subscription service that includes 38 hands-on chemistry sets with a 3D microscope phone/tablet app to bolster the experience by showing what happens on a molecular level. It also is the first to include VR/AR implementation, further immersing their students in the practical project. Today, MEL Science announces that they’ve secured $2.5 million to take their education to the next level.

A look inside the MEL Science starter kit.

The MEL Science kit includes a smartphone macro lens, smartphone stand, syringes, a fuel stove, VR goggles, and other tools. It’s pretty neat to see a set of items that provides the essential things to experiment with chemistry while also tapping into the evolving digital culture that our children are growing up deeply embedded in. Kids and adults alike tend to have regular access to smartphones and tablets, so why not use these powerful devices to bolster the education process.

“First you touch the science physically with your hands, then you can look inside and see the processes at the molecular level,” says Vassili Philippov, who founded MEL Science in 2014, in a prepared statement. “This combination of practical training and virtual reality is the ideal form of learning. It helps you not just memorize but actually understand the essence of the event.”

Upload has previously reported on education initiatives involving virtual and augmented reality, including OpenSesame’s $9 million expansion of their e-Learning into VR and AR. Online language learning system Fluent Worlds is even planning the jump to VR. These types of programs are here to stay and potentially evolve as more investors recognize the huge potential in front of them.

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Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg: “We’ve Invested $250M in Funding Oculus Content”

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg: “We’ve Invested $250M in Funding Oculus Content”

Facebook’s Oculus VR is one of the most iconic companies in the VR industry. It helped kickstart the revolution and is doing its part to continue pushing the industry forward. Today at Oculus Connect 3, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on stage that the company had invested $250 million in funding Oculus content.

The topic of exclusivity is still a hot button issue in the industry, with the debate between Oculus Home and the Steam marketplace. Whether or not you agree with the concept of VR software exclusives, there’s no doubt that Oculus’ commitment to funding projects is helping spur VR’s rapid rise as of late.

Following this announcement, Zuckerberg also announced that they are planning to inject at least another $250 million in funding for Oculus content creators as well. The VR company also announced a new education section will be added to Oculus Home for better sorting and emphasis on content.

Oculus’ Nate Mitchell then also announced that the company will cover Unreal Engine licensing fees for developers that earn up to $5 million in revenue. And finally, they company also announced that $10 million would be dedicated to diversity-based projects.

Stay tuned at UploadVR for all of the latest news and updates from Oculus Connect 3. You can read more about their upcoming Social VR plans here.

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How VR gave us beer goggles, but not as we know them

Virtual reality is a fast expanding market – from pubs to medicine, forward-thinking entrepreneurs are testing its limits

Virtual reality (VR) has finally come of age and a diverse array of new businesses have recently set up to capitalise on this rapidly expanding market. From ‘beer goggles’ that aim to improve the experience of having a pint, to an app that lets medical students ‘sit-in’ on operations, entrepreneurs are exploring the possibilities VR presents.

Forecasts from Deloitte suggest that 2016 will be VR’s “first billion dollar” year, with hardware sales hitting $700m and the remainder coming from content.

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