As part of his opening address to the Infocom Media Business Exchange, Singapore’s minister for Communication and Information Yaacob Ibrahim announced a pilot scheme to introduce virtual reality (VR) in to schools and clinical training centres.
The Sangapore regulator Infocom Media Development Authority (IMDA) will be working collaboration with VR production company Beach House Pictures and the Ministry of Education to produce content that will be used in five primary schools to teach social studies. The pilot will use a custom app that will be used as a ‘virtual classroom’ to help teachers guide students through the curriculum.
The VR experiences will allow students to explore landmarks of Singapore such as the Central Sikh Temple, Chinese Garden or the Geylang Serai Market. Other experiences teach students about modern high-tech farming techniques and cultivation methods by allowing students to virtually visit a dairy farm, organic vegetable farm and offshore fish farm.
“Through the pilot lessons, about 400 students in primary four and primary five learnt about the design and architectural features of buildings as well as characteristics of high-tech farming,” said Yaacob.
The technology will also be used as part of clinical training at Tan Tock Seng Hospital where it will be used to complement traditional training methods. Consultants and other medical personnel will be assisting content studio SideFX Studios is further developing the VR technology to create immersive scenarios suitable for training and teaching.
“Traditional clinical training is resource intensive and costly, and might not be able to replicated scenarios realistically,” Yaacob continued. “This collaboration will develop immersive simulations for basic surgical skills and complex airway management, which is critical in life-threatening emergencies.”
Singapore will join a host of other facilities which have begun to use VR as part of training medical personnel for a variety of situations.
VRFocus will continue to bring you news on VR use in training and teaching.