Imagine a typical FE classroom on a typical Wednesday afternoon in Berkshire. Ten gaming and IT students are settling down to learn. But instead of ordinary lessons with their usual teachers, these students put on a headset that allows them to be taught by the leading computer programming experts in Dubai and California, who join them in a virtual classroom.
This is the very latest in virtual reality (VR) learning where students don’t just view great lesson material in VR, but actually join a VR classroom with teachers teleported in live to teach them. Both students and teachers have 360-degree vision, so they can see their arms and legs or move and interact normally with fellow attendees. However, the laws of physics don’t apply. If they want to bring a dinosaur into the lesson or take it to the moon, using VR technology, they can. All without leaving their seats.
This might sound like science-fiction, but it actually happened at my own college just two weeks ago. It isn’t every day that Pixar’s co-founder and computer programming legend, Loren Carpenter, is found teaching students in Slough. But last week he did. VR technology made it possible, inspiring my gaming students beyond anything I have seen before.
Clearly, teleporting teachers from all over the world offers some very exciting possibilities and some innovative solutions to on-going issues that the teaching profession faces.
Retention crisis
Retention issues remain a key challenge for many educators with teacher recruitment often being limited to a small local catchment area. What a boost it would be for students to get the opportunity to be taught by teachers from around the UK or even from around the world.
With the latest VR technology, travel is no longer an issue. If it suits them, teachers could make use of time differences in different countries to teach a maths class or two, before their usual day job starts.
It also offers great CPD benefits and the chance to learn different teaching methods from a global community of teachers.
Every six weeks, using the same technology, I meet virtually with educators in places as diverse as Mumbai, Australia, Ireland and China, hosted by Steve Bambury, head of digital learning at the Jumeirah School in Dubai to discuss VR in education. It is a forum open to all and I can see that many more of these virtual teaching classrooms will begin to spring up elsewhere as the platform, ENGAGE, is free for any educator to access and use.
Cost-saving
When it comes to vocational FE courses, this type of VR can help reduce another bugbear - material costs. Currently, for example, new bricklaying students break many bricks, which can’t be repurposed so end up being thrown away. With VR, we can start training before they walk into a workshop. That will mean fewer broken bricks and consequently, lower costs.
Colleges will be able to train up students quicker, more effectively and better than ever before. Just like pilots who are initially trained in simulators to avoid errors in the sky, our practical courses will see fewer accidents, fewer risks and fewer mistakes made.
One of the biggest issues in online learning is the notoriously high dropout rates. With MOOCs, there is little personal attention from a teacher and interaction with other students is in the form of notes left on notice boards.
By contrast, the latest in VR technology gives students and teachers virtual bodies. Everyone interacts with each other as they would in real life, whether they are piloting Apollo 11 or exploring the Titanic underwater. You get that bond with your fellow students and teacher that keeps people motivated and coming back for more.
Powerful engagement
Neuroscience dictates that having a hands-on experience activates the sensory and motor-related parts of your brain so, using VR, we’re able to really accelerate learning for our students. With more of your brain fired up, you have an improved capability to make more powerful memories.
For my IT and gaming students who took part in our recent event, you could see this engagement in action. One raved about having met the Pixar legend for several hours afterwards. He found the experience mesmerising. In this world, anyone can go anywhere and do anything. What an incredible opportunity to broaden students’ creativity and help us think differently about how we solve some of the current issues facing our sector.
Christian Long is a lecturer at Langley College, part of the Windsor Forest Colleges Group.
