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November 15, 2002
Top 10 Smart Technologies for Schools (cont'd)
4. Virtual Reality
The next wave of VR promises experiences so real you can almost feel them.
By David Warlick
Few applications have inspired as much excitement and speculation as virtual reality. Coined almost 20 years ago by technology evangelist and computer scientist Jaron Lanier, the term virtual reality still retains its cache as the exclusive domain of futurists. However, the reality of virtual reality is that we use it in its most basic form every time we select computer-generated file folders and documents that look like pieces of paper. Increasingly popular forms of VR also include Apple's QuickTime, a common VR application used by prospective college students, allowing them 360-degree panoramic views of university campuses. Budding artists also use QTVR when they want to take a virtual visit to the Louvre.
With its head-mounted displays, data gloves, and navigation tools, immersive VR has inspired the most excitement. By offering the user an interactive physical and intellectual experience impossible in the real world, immersive VR blurs the line between human-computer interaction. As the wearer of a head-mounted display turns his or her neck to operate the navigator, the computer environment conveys the irresistible illusion of moving within a real space among tangible objects. In the classroom, this technology may one day take students beyond the textbook to virtual settings where they might engage in tactile experiences exploring the surface of Mars, a 12th-century castle, or the inside of an amoeba, learning experiences not possible with traditional teaching tools, such as a chalkboard or textbook.
We may not have to wait too long for VR-equipped classrooms, given the pioneering work that's going on in one Florida elementary school. Hearing-impaired students in Orange County are using VREAL, which stands for Virtual Reality Education for Assisted Learning, to practice life skills as well as math and reading. Equipped with joysticks and high-resolution monitors, kids learn how to navigate their hometown and ask people questions in simulated real-life encounters. When needed, a sign language interpreter appears on screen to help students. Such practice gives them confidence to face social situations they may be avoiding because of their hearing impairment.
While most students have experienced VR technologies in the form of computer games, in the science classroom of the future, they will manipulate chromosomes on a strand of DNA and view the resulting permutations-without the moral and physical consequences. In time, students who once listened to a physics teacher lecture in class might slip on their VR glasses and find themselves in Albert Einstein's study, talking with the scientist about quantum mechanics, or better yet, inside of an electron, experiencing the behavior of quantum particles. Already, health professionals are benefiting from the introduction of highly sensitive haptic technologies-the sense of touch delivered via data gloves or instruments-into virtual reality environments. Cardiologists are performing virtual heart transplants with surgical simulations that allow them to train in non-life-threatening situations. In the future, the high-speed network infrastructure provided by Internet2 and the collaborative potential offered via Web-based videoconferencing will transform classrooms into immersive, tactile environments where remote groups can work together to solve problems and exchange ideas.
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