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.

Comments

why?

[Karmashock]

Why does the classroom of the future need to be VR? I would think the typical computer monitor would be sufficient.

Re:why?

[sunderland56]

Why does the classroom of the future need to be VR?

So that your teacher can be a smokin' hot babe? In every single class?

Re:why?

[Karmashock]

because we don't have enough porn...

Re:why?

[gweihir]

Actually, that would be a pretty bad idea: https://edutechdebate.org/ict-...

Learning is really not about technology, as soon as pen, paper and books are available.

Re:why?

[davester666]

This should finish off the job of not educating a good portion of the population. Between not being able to 'VR' into the class because the internet bill couldn't be paid, to the VR helmet being broken/used for video games instead, to even less 'classroom discipline' [kids actually paying attention to the teacher], to the biggest one, chiefly even less social interaction between kids.

Sure, some kids can successfully learn this way, but not a lot.

And rich kids parents know it's all about connections while growing up, so they will still bundle them off actual schools.

But I can totally see that 'inner city' schools will be forced to spend billions on this technology, and it will be sold to the public as 'giving the poorest children the biggest hand up". And teachers of those schools will generally be for it because it means far less stress in class trying to get children/teenagers to pay attention without being able to discipline them [they will just cut of any student that bothers them] and it makes it that much harder for the students to knife the teacher.

So, this is really a 'win' for America. Spend billions of dollars to help the poor, by giving that money to several large corporations, then shove it out into the poorest schools and forget about it.

Re:why?

[pitchpipe]

Having a smoking hot babe as a teacher has been show to increase focus and attention span, at least in a study I did of myself. Although I don't remember if I learned anything.

An Unbiased Opinion, Eh?

[NotSanguine]

In other news, a spokesman for gun maker Smith & Wesson said today that "gun ranges are the classrooms of the future." Film at eleven.

Re:An Unbiased Opinion, Eh?

[fractoid]

Leader of a large corporation says that corporation's product is essential to the future of the human race.

Transformative Platforms!

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Transformative Platforms!

[Anonymous Coward]

I taught for a while in the early 2000's. We had to do inventory every year, and our department had a number of giant boxes that incorporated speakers, amps, and eight-track players. No one knew how to work them or if they even worked, and no one remembered ever having any eight-track tapes to play in them, but we had the machines in pristine condition. They'd been moved from the old school building to the new one in the late 90's and kept in the teachers' workroom, and we doubted anyone had touched them in twenty years. After much wrangling, some of us convinced the department chair to let us asset-transfer them back to the school system's central warehouse; we gained an invaluable amount of storage space from the deal.

One aged teacher had 16mm filmstrips. His chair wouldn't let him transfer the filmstrips from his inventory, even though he had no projector for them -- it had broken back during some Presidential administration I probably didn't remember. He said the students had never learned anything from the filmstrips anyway.

Every year the system would buy more clutter that wasn't actually useful for teaching, just for looking good for having new technology. Once the technology isn't new anymore, it finally becomes licit to tell the truth: that the filmstrips and record players never really helped the kids learn to read or add and subtract. The cheapest things -- pencil and paper, chalk, books -- were the most effective tools, because they gave practice. The rest was just inventory, or rather it became inventory once the next fad came along and the hype surrounding the previous fad had faded enough that we were allowed to think that it wasn't the silver bullet that would magically teach the students in place of practice and human interaction.

Re:Transformative Platforms!

[Sarten-X]

To be fair, those things did transform education.

1. Radio enabled students to study the ever-changing reality of modern global events, rather than merely studying literal "textbook cases", supporting a paradigm of learning by observing, rather than learning by prescribed theory.
2. Television, in addition to carrying on the benefit of radio, shows students the world rather than simply referring to points on a map. Different cultures and environments can be described in full color with fluid video, rather than hoping the student understands a short text description that too often seems absurd due to its foreign context.
3. Language labs are still in use today, if the school can afford the high cost to keep them running. The transformative techniques they pioneered are actually seeing more use in specialized environments where a pre-built curriculum is sufficient to teach a skill, such as for technical training.
4. Personal computers were a major factor in changing the educational process into a full-time occupation. Where students used to have only a bit of homework to do each night, now everything children are exposed to is pushed as an "educational opportunity". This, in conjunction with the increased rate of information transfer that a computer supports, exposes students to far more educational information than previous techniques support. Considering the exponential increase in the about of information considered to be part of a basic education, this is a good thing.
5. Laptops, especially as they're penetrated the corporate environment, have become a vital tool in university courses. Now, the educational focus is less about absorbing every detail presented in the class, because references are always available. It's the overall concepts that are important, with the details deferred until later.
6. Tablets have taken the successes of laptops further in places where a full portable computer isn't really necessary. One notable example is a teaching hospital, where the tablet provides a convenient addition to the ubiquitous patient charts, providing quick access to a senior's opinion and reference material. They've also shown significant benefit in early-childhood development, as a ruggedized tablet can provide more interaction (and therefore hold attention better) than a TV show or adult's presentation, while still introducing the basic elements of language are mathematics that the rest of the child's educational career will build on.
7. Virtual worlds have not seen much use directly as formal educational tools, but they have become a more convenient form of extracurricular study groups. Where previously such groupd would meet in a library, bar, or colleague's house, it's now more convenient to meet in a virtual space. Depending on the subject, the degree of interaction required varies.
8. The gamification of education has a long history, actually dating back to the "ancient classroom of Rome or Greece" that you mentioned. Plato and Socrates used verbal and logic games, encouraging students to discover answers rather than simply accept what was given to them. In the Middle Ages, chess was used to teach military strategy, highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of various forms of attack.
9. Finally, tape recorders opened the doors to whole arsenal of educational techniques, ranging from pre-recorded lectures to verbatim note-taking. The use of pre-recorded materials avoids teachers fumbling through an exercise, while also breaking up the lesson into manageable sessions that the brain can process more easily.

Perhaps the most important educational transformation brought about by technology has been the effect of all of these combined. Indeed, today's classrooms and classes look nothing like ancient Rome or Greece. Those ancient students had to carefully choose their teachers, lest they be taught principles that the government had banned. If a student didn't understand the teacher's presentation, they had no alternative resource. Even as late as th

Re:Transformative Platforms!

[LoRdTAW]

If you really look at how schools piss money away on tech gadgets only to let them collect dust you will find incredible waste. For as long as I can remember, the AV equipment at the various schools I attended sat unused for 99.99% of the time. For an hour session there simply wasn't time to get the cart, set it up, show a video and break it down for the next class. Most schools don't have a dedicated AV department unless they specialize in AV production. So the teachers are left to retrieve and set up the systems and most of them can't even change a lightbulb.

In a high school shop class we has a pretty fancy and expensive AV cart with a pro level Sony Trinitron Monitor and VCR. It just sat in the tool cage year round collecting dust. One day another shop teacher wanted to use the cart to show a video to his class. Turns out some knucklehead destroyed the cart by cutting wires and jamming a metal rod into the VCR destroying the tape load mechanism. There was a huge shit storm and our class was blamed. And rightfully so because we had a surplus of knuckleheads. The quoted cost of that AV cart? $5000. And I believe it seeing how the equipment was top of the line Sony stuff. And this wasn't the only AV cart in the school, we had about a dozen of them. They did nothing year round until some teacher worked a video into a lesson. In fact the only time I ever watched a video in my four years of high school was in health class and English where we watched a film of The Tragedy of Macbeth.

And I not even going to get into the $250,000 robotics system that sat unused for years until my electrical installation shop teacher convinced the school to give us the system instead of the snobby ET department who didn't care if it was sold for scrap. I headed up that project and it was a wonderful experience working with that system.

The worst use of VR ever

[rebelwarlock]

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 truly hope not

[Camael]

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.

Re:I truly hope not

[Harlequin80]

That would surely depend on whether the platform was closed to content. I could be very wrong here but I thought the Occulus was merely a way of viewing content not in anyway controlling what the content is.

In the same way that an iPod can be filled with MP3s directly or via the itunes store means Apple doesn't control the content. It can control whats on iTunes but that is a different thing to controlling what is on your iPod.

I guess I see it as someone having the patent on LCD screens (which I'm sure there is). They don't control what you see on the LCD.

Right...

[DivineKnight]

"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!

Not likely.

[olsmeister]

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.

Bad for developing brains

[kheldan]

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.

VR is still pointless.

[Seumas]

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.

Distance Education

[Harlequin80]

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.

infinite budget cuts

[globaljustin]

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"

Some classes would be AWESOME!

[khasim]

Physics - awesome!
Chemistry - awesome
Biology - awesome

But I think he's wrong on some many issues. From the summary:

... he imagined laser-scanning every object in the Smithsonian for students to explore ...

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.

... and collaborating in shared virtual spaces rather than campuses.

They're called "chat rooms". Wanna "cyber"? Porn is NOT the same as education.

Looking at other students would be a distraction.

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 youâ(TM)re right in front of me.

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.