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Oculus Rift CEO Says Classrooms of the Future Will Be In VR Goggles
jyosim writes "Oculus Rift isn't just for gaming. Brendan Iribe, CEO of the VR company, says the immersive tech will be "one of the most transformative platforms for education of all time." In an interview with Chronicle of Higher Education, he imagined laser-scanning every object in the Smithsonian for students to explore, and collaborating in shared virtual spaces rather than campuses. "The next step past that is when you have shared space, and not only do you believe that this object is right there in front of me, but I look around and I see other people just like we see each other now, and I really, truly believe that you’re right in front of me. We can look at each others’ eyes. If you look down at something, I can look down at the same time. And it’s every bit as good as this. And if we can make virtual reality every bit as good as real reality in terms of communications and the sense of shared presence with others, you can now educate people in virtual classrooms, you can now educate people with virtual objects, and we can all be in a classroom together [virtually], we can all be present, we can have relationships and communication that are just as good as the real classroom," he says.
Why does the classroom of the future need to be VR? I would think the typical computer monitor would be sufficient.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Titans of Space sends you on a tour of the solar system.
In other news, a spokesman for gun maker Smith & Wesson said today that "gun ranges are the classrooms of the future." Film at eleven.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
List of transformative, disruptive, game-changing, paradigm-shifting technologies that have changed education forever:
1) Radio
2) Televison
3) Language Labs
4) Personal Computers
5) Laptops
6) Tablets
7) Second Life/Virtual Worlds
8) Gamification
9) Eight-Track Tape Recorders
Thanks to these transformative platforms, the classroom of today is nothing like the ancient classroom of Rome or Greece, or even the quaint antiquity of the early twentieth century. Education is completely different now! No more reading, writing, and arithmetic: thanks to transformative platforms and gadgets, kids have no need for such lessons! And it's all thanks to visionaries and other CEO's who haven't seen the inside of a classroom since their childhood.
Yes, let's strap on VR goggles all day for classes which aren't enhanced in even the smallest way by VR. Hell, why stop there? Keep them on constantly. It'll be great when grocery shopping.
i'm sure the ceo of ford expected the future of education to be in the bed of trucks
I don't buy isolated VR as a learning tool for wide use.
I stop paying attention to what they say and start paying attention to the person and think what their motivation may be.
I am fairly uncomfortable with the thought of "one of the most transformative platforms for education of all time" being under the direct control of private corporate interests. Whose interest lies in maximizing shareholder profits at the expense of everyone else.
Aside from imposing a royalty/licence fee on every user, having platform control indirectly enables thought control in the form of restricting easy access to the mass population. The publication of material dealing with sensitive but important topics such as religion, abortion, gay rights, racism, terrorism, prostitution, child pornography etc can be curbed simply by denying them access to the platform. We are already seeing this happen to a lesser extent with Facebook (deleted posts, banned accounts etc) and Apple store (all forms of porn).
As an analogous situation, imagine if the creation of (text)books was originally patented. The patent holder would then be able to ensure that any textbooks whose contents disagreed with him do not get published simply by denying a licence to the publisher for that book.
Obligatory Simpsons... https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Buck Feta. You know what to do.
Reading this pud-puller's self-aggrandizing bullshit was quite enough for me tonight.
"Oculus Rift CEO Says Classrooms of the Future Will Be In VR Goggles"...and people will live out their lives in self-contained tubes.
I swear, when some of these CEOs talk about new technologies for education, you can hear the line from The Hudsucker Proxy in the background ("You know...for kids!").
"we can have relationships and communication that are just as good as the real classroom" -> *facepalms* Drop the Web 2.0 'Social Media' bullshit. "It's a social thing, where you communicate with other people, doing other social things, kind of like a party or something, but using our technology!" -> Someone please kill me, it's the same story every single time. Why not just promote the damn VR stuff for what it can do that RL (real life) can't do? Displaying stuff that can't fit into a classroom, like a tesseract. You have this great technology which can be used to push the boundary of what students are exposed to these days, and these jokers want to use it for a glorified chatroom. Gah!
They will not.
I know a CEO has to say crap like that, but it's just so ... over the top. I know classrooms are the holy grail for corporations, because it's all about the kids after all and money should be no object to a quality education, but damn. I'm surprised he didn't launch into how VR technology could drastically reduce the spread of the severe respiratory disease that is currently sweeping through schools in some parts of the country. Why is this on /.? He needs to stick to where they will probably really hit the jackpot, porn.
What an impediment to learning googles are.
Wasn't there a news story some time ago that said research was done that shows that children a certain age or younger should not play 3D games because it screws up the development of their brain? Also mod Oculus Rift CEO down for being as biased as they come.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
This is like saying that THIS year will be the year when VRML takes off and replaces text and images for e-commerce. It never happens, and for good reason. Why "navigate" for minutes when I can page and scroll for seconds, with no real loss in fidelity? Yes, there is actually an idiot out there in the world who keeps trumpeting every or every-other year about how THIS IS THE YEAR. Much like that guy and his prediction, this, too, is not fated to supplant the status quo. (The next iteration of learning will likely have little to do with modality and much to do with removing cognitive or processing bottlenecks at the learner's side.)
You'll go where I go, defile what I defile, eat who I eat.
IE the Microsoft Illumiroom thing... projectors onto 4 or even 6 surfaces where the viewer is in the center of the experience. The VR goggles are so 2010.
Education? ... Yes! Why it's great for education! In fact, it's the future of the classroom! And don't forget, Oculus Rift is both a floor wax and a dessert topping!
But seriously:
And if we can make virtual reality every bit as good as real reality in terms of communications and the sense of shared presence with others, you can now educate people in virtual classrooms, you can now educate people with virtual objects, and we can all be in a classroom together [virtually], we can all be present, we can have relationships and communication that are just as good as the real classroom
Classroom teaching is a bug, not a feature. It is a side effect of the fact that our earholes and eyeballs are connected to our skulls, and until recently we had to put them in the same meatspace where the teacher was talking and showing pictures. Once you step into the no-physical-presence-required realm of using a VR headset, you can release the restrictions imposed by the simultaneous physical presence requirement.
One simple example: Lecture halls, with their tiered seating -- those are designed that way because we can't see through each other, not because it is better to be sixty feet away and at a thirty degree angle from the teacher.
And how about discussions? Hierarchical, collaboratively moderated, store-and-forward discussion threads are much better than "realtime whoever gets the teacher's attention before the bell rings." We've been using the latter because that's the best we had for thousands of years.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
you failed to use right the Subject
All the goggles are accomplishing is wrapping an image around your face. Until touch, movement, smell, and sound are also adequately reproduced, it's not virtual reality anymore than the Hard Drivin' arcade machine from the 90s was. And replication of those elements are not coming in our life time; likely won't come until we've figured out a way to trick the brain into doing the work for us.
Also -- holy shit, the pink eye this is going to cause. Gross.
That's just the intro to this book. As fiction, it was entertaining. As a possible actual reality? Not so much, thanks.
As an educator I am tired of venture capitalists and high-tech industries constantly seeking for ways to reinvent the classroom to create profit, when the traditional model works perfectly as long as it is well funded.
And where does new technology end up? In the garbage. We didn't use our laserdisc players, we didn't use our videoconferencing hardware, we didn't use our CD and DVD and BD writers, we didn't use our touch-screens, we didn't find any valid applications for our tablets. On top of that we have literally no budget to maintain and support all this technology which needs constant, endless support in a school environment.
Believe it or not, education works when we pay teachers, buy supplies, fund breakfast and lunch programs, keep the libraries open, and keep vocational and art, music, dance, theater courses going. That's all it takes.
But in the end we just get another new football field and a bunch of tablets that get broken within months, and no money for anything that truly matters. Administrators line their pockets with money earmarked for the classroom, and the students go without. This has gone on for years and years.
Still gotta work on that drool from the corner of the mouth.
Have gnu, will travel.
This could be excellent for distance education. A virtual classroom for those people who simply cannot get there.
Or in the situation where the teacher has the best view and you and everyone to see that. Imagine being able to watch, from the exact perspective, in stereoscopic a master surgeon at work.
Since it probably takes 100 hours of programming per hour of content what this guy is actually doing is providing job security of IT pros! Oh, wait, I meant job security for HB1 visa holders.
High school physics class would be great with VR.
Bandwidth sucks with Distance Education. Typically latency sucks as well. If that's taken into account and you can pre-download bits of a virtual Smithsonian, then that's useful, but for a lot of other things close to realtime voice and crappy, but timely video gives the kids the answers now and lets interaction happen pretty close to immediately.
I'm not dismissing it out of hand. I was really pumped on the idea after looking at molecular interactions using 3D goggles at the Hitachi pavilion at Expo88 (in 1988), but up to now it's turned out to be not as good an illustration tool as ping pong balls and glue. I think for a lot of situations a 2D representation on a flat monitor looks enough like 3D to get the message across, especially if it can be manipulated or the point of view changed.
Idiot who can't bring a Samsung display to market claims everyone will be using his dumb ass gimmick toy.
i would like to see the new pattern of teaching soon
technology will always just be a tool for a human teacher
the notion that these would be cost effective is absolutely ridiculous...maybe one day but not now
every dollar spent on these is wasted...they are not intrisically value added...like seeing a moving w/ 3D glasses on vs the regular film
sure there are probably a million "innovative" ideas for things like a virtual walk through of [insert historical thing you think is important]
if Occulus wants to donate them, great...but if they have lobbyists going around selling school districts on actually **using tax dollars to buy these for schools**...that's ridiculous in this era of infinite "budget cuts"
Thank you Dave Raggett
Classrooms of the future will be with PCs
... with iPads
... with Oculi Rifts
Funny. I see more and more parents sending their kids to anthroposophy-based schools, even though they don't care for Rudolph Steiners's theories. They want their kids to get in touch with the real world. Even parents in Silicon Valley demand that computers are shunned from the lower grades of elementary schools.
Physics - awesome!
Chemistry - awesome
Biology - awesome
But I think he's wrong on some many issues. From the summary:
Why? That's like looking at a single car from one country and claiming an "education". Think REALITY. The students could see HOW the objects were created. What tools were used. Who crafted the item. What the society was like that required it.
They're called "chat rooms". Wanna "cyber"? Porn is NOT the same as education.
Looking at other students would be a distraction.
Why does it matter that you see avatars looking at the same point that you are looking at?
And he keeps going on about that. For him it is all about "seeing" other "people" (really just avatars) so it can be the same "experience" as real life.
That's stupid. They are not people. They are avatars. And knowing how people are, their avatars would be designed to be as distracting as possible.
Oculus Rift CEO Says Classrooms of the Future Will Be In VR Goggles
Says, hopes, whatever.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
I read over your arthcle, and i found it inquisitive, you may find
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This guy hasn't even shipped a product.
Considering the failure of 3D TV and 3D movies, 3D headsets have to be viewed as an iffy business proposition. The Oculus Rift may turn out to be the Segway of display devices.
Ready Player one !!!
does not improve education performance. we already know that. the only ones selling tech to schools is the ones that make it.. and for profit motives only, not because the shit actually helps.. which it doesn't. this rift guy is just making himself look like an idiot.. and that's not virtual reality.
if i had a choice the kids would go to a school that had computer lab not pc in the classrooms, studied out of regular text books, didnt rely on new tech in the classroom except where appropriate (certain science equipment, etc), did not require or even expect a pc or internet in the home, and where internet use is not needed for anything, but is taught as its own subject in its own class where it belongs.
Ignoring the problems with lack of touch, taste of the air, unconscious identification of hormones, etc... of current VR tech, there is no fucking way I'd send my (future) kids to a school controlled by Facebook. The book publishers are bad enough. I don't want virtual ads placed on every 'empty' surface.
The move from chalkboard to dry erase has stolen the beautiful sound affects which can be created, from the angry staccato to the subtle swooshing. Now I have to flip the marker around to make any sound, and I have no little leftover bits of chalk to throw at students.
with eyes so fucked that they can't interact with anything without VR goggles.
Wow, reading these comments made me realize there are officially no nerds left on slashdot.
No one can see the trends shaping our interactions towards a more digital existence? I'm taking a class about the impact of technology on society and one of the more frequent discussions is how AR and VR is going to transform education. Seems to me most people here would cry about the car never taking over from the horse. I'm an old man! Shouldn't I be the one complaining about getting technological progress off my lawn?
Linden Labs said the exact same thing about second life.
"You'll be able to have meetings and virtual classrooms! Every major college, and business will have a storefront in second life."
I'm pretty sure the only thing left keeping SL alive these days is the furries that have sex on the network. If I'm not mistaken, even they don't like SL much anymore.
If you 3D print the VR goggles, THAT'll be transformative, game-changing paradigm-shifting !!!
I remember being told in 1980 the kids would all be staying home and having remote classes on our television or PC.
Not so much, I guess.
VR is not comparable in any way shape or form to the automobile. VR has very specific applications and benefits, none of which should have anything to do with education until very late into education. I have built VR CAVE and PowerWall systems and developed VR programs, and assure you that there is no benefit to standard education. If you have doubts, go out into the world and look at real word benefits. I do mean actual benefits, not just some "cool technology" factor. Hint: Human Factors Engineering surely can benefit from VR, as can very advanced kinematics. Neither of those two subjects are in standard classrooms, and both require advanced degrees and a tremendous amount of knowledge in specific software to build the models and simulations.
Further, none of the subjects that could benefit from VR should be taught in standard education. Not because any education is bad mind you. The reasoning is A) cost B) Time (you would have to give up a lot of other general education) and C) Not enough people would or could benefit.
If you wish to argue that it should be taught, ask yourself why other advanced degrees are not mandatory.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
This will never happen because of 2 reasons: seizures and lawyers. As someone who suffered from epilepsy through Middle School and High School there is no way in hell this would ever be acceptable. Every single seizure I had was caused by video displays.
Its pretty old hat to say every new media will revolutionize education: phograph, movies, radio, mail order, telvision, internet ....
Good old human teacher contact is still major factor after 140 years.
I read you are here http://slashdot.org/comments.p... + seeing you keep a TomHudson sockpuppet account http://slashdot.org/~tomhudson... and this other of your many sockpuppets on slashdot too http://slashdot.org/~Barbara%2... also makes me believe you may be. Are you? I can see you saying you're handicapped if you cut off your OWN package like that (lol). Modding this honest question down isn't answering it. "Inquiring minds want to know".
Don't you have any balls? I read about your transtesticleness, lol you cut them off http://news.slashdot.org/comme...
Using multiple registered accounts + stalking apk by ac posts http://news.slashdot.org/comme... ? You said it in your own words, transtesticle. Now, eat them.
No one will ever have to get a concussion in gym again! But the school nurse will need to be a chiropractor.
I'm thinking about it, therefore I might be.
So the guy read Ready Player One and wants to sound like this is some vision they at Oculus Rift are putting forward because the shareholders will like it.
Of course it should be made use of. There are certain aspects of education wherein a virtual reality experience can certain be of use (if to do nothing but reduce storage space of models that you'd otherwise have one person able to interact with at a time, with less detail being possible, and definitely without linked-labels and other such perks that can be brought by VR).
But then, even Second Life has a history of being used educationally, though not necessarily as usefully due to limitations of that particular platform. It's one thing to be able to describe the window Oswald was shooting out of; another entirely to be able to go into a 3D simulation and put you right there to look out of it to see for yourself.
I'm just having a hard time finding the "news" in this, unless they've actually got something concrete built yet, or at least specifically planned.
How can the kids use the pads that will be the future of education if the VR headgear is the future of education. wait... virtual... tablets? WOW! Patent office here I come! Suckerberg will give me 100B for this innovation (or ill just say its the future of gamin and sell to M$ for 3B)
... and will the seats still recline?
Honestly, the is excellent news in the areas of student warehousing *and* ease of slotting-into their cubes later ...
Coming up later, an interview with the barber who says short hair is the latest greatest thing.
It's true I tell you, feller at work's next door neighbour read it in the paper.