The article about utilizing augmented and virtual reality in education discusses the values of using this technology for information retention purposes. The work emphasizes the power smart phone apps could have in the classroom and I completely agree.
When putting myself into this situation, I feel like I would have enjoyed learning way more with the power of virtual reality. Where it makes the most sense to me is when you are learning history.
I am imagining putting on a VR headset to feel like I am present for the moments in history that we study, rather than reading about them in a textbook. I instantly think of something like Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech.
I feel like it would be crazy valuable (as long as the technology reaches the potential, I believe it can) to simply put on your headset and listen to the speech from the perspective of someone involved in the March on Washington in 1963.
It would allow for a better understanding of the impact of the event. A gathering of 250,000 people feels way more real as one of the members of the march than from reading it in a textbook.
It would make me want to learn more and understand the details of the situation to make my experience more valuable (again comes down to how advanced the technology gets).
A concern I have with this possibility is how expensive the product would be and how school districts would work around this. When I was in middle and high school the school district supplied netbooks to all the students for the duration you were there, but would they also supply VR headsets or would it come down to the student and their families having to buy them.
It is that feeling when someone has a toy or video game that you have always wanted but the parents will not get It for you, but in the classroom, I think it would be even worse. I am in class reading a textbook while the person next to me is witnessing the murdering of John F. Kennedy as if they were in Dallas on that day in 1963.
If the technology reaches that level and wants to be used in the classroom, it would have to be something that was all or nothing. Either every student is using this technology, or nobody is.
If the money aspect was figured out, I still think this would be an amazing investment for in classroom growth. I think this is next level education that could really impact the interests of students that normally would not be excited to learn.
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