McLanahan Stevens
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The Virtual World of Schools

When Virtual Reality is mentioned, it conjures up images of some pre-pubescent male with a Head Mounted Display (HMD) attempting to protect the Earth by smiting all of the evil gouls from Quake. Many VR advocates see this as an unfortunate metaphor for Virtual Reality. There is an important way to exploit this medium in order to educate the younger "Web-head" generation (meaning, of course, the fascination that today's youths have towards the internet and computers). Many schools have caught up with the TV generation by providing television in the classroom. They then put the internet in the classroom. The next logical step is putting Virtual Reality in the classroom.
Youths today are becoming acquainted with the latest technologies while the men and women that teach them are becoming antiquated. The only solution to prevent this techno-lag in schools is to take a technology in its fledgling stages of development and bring that technology into the classroom. The next item of value after networking classrooms is to provide the students with full three-dimensional interaction with the classes' curriculum.
Chemistry is the most obvious application for a Virtual Reality World (or Virtual Environment). A study was done by Christine M. Byrne on the Use of Virtual Reality as an Educational Tool (http://www.hitl.washington.edu/ publications/dissertations/Byrne/). While Byrne did not specify the reasons for using chemistry, one could easily deduce why she chose chemistry, as it is the simplest application for a Virtual Environment due to the fact that it deals with particles which we cannot see. When an educator attempts to describe the interaction of atoms or the mechanics of the atoms themselves most students would simply look back at the teacher with a blank stare. Virtual Environments would allow those students to actually see and feel the interactions of two atoms or the mechanics inside an atom. In this case, a Haptic interface would probably be the number one priority with the graphics coming in second. A Haptic interface would be required, as the most important lesson to learn in this instance is how two atoms interact through attraction or repulsion. If a student could feel this interaction then his or her brain would most likely remember because our brains are better suited to learning by experience than learning through lecturing and rules.
Physics and Astronomy teachers would also benefit from Virtual Reality in the schools. Consider a possible game that is centered around space. The student would don a HMD and some type of 6 degree of freedom (6DOF) controller. The virtual environment would consist of a space ship somewhere near a planetary body. The students job would be to navigate around that planetary body by using knowledge gained from class lecture. The game could also include a star map with which the student could navigate to, say, the Orion Nebula using the various constellations in the sky. Many students forget that they are learning when they are immersed in an environment like this. It is this paradox of learning (forgetting about learning) which helps students retain the information taught in classes because their attitudes are better and they are having fun (an important aspect in learning).
Virtual Reality could also play an important role in Biology. A student could take a virtual tour of the inside of a human body to physically visualize what the various organs do. They could even dissect a body from the inside out. On the subject of dissection, a student no longer has to dissect a dead frog or pig in order to learn about organs. By providing some type of haptic interface like a pen based force display and a HMD, the student could dissect a frog, pig, mink, human being, or whatever else the imagination is inclined to think up. The use of a haptic interface would enable the student to actually feel the organs in these creatures.
The next possible application for Virtual Reality in the schools is history and/or geography. Many of us remember the field trips of middle and high school, but few of us remember what we actually learned in the class that sponsored that trip. If, for example, a student could have access to a computer generated re-creation of the Battle of Gettysburg in a history class, that student would be able to remember the Battle of Gettysburg as if he or she were actually present at that battle. The student could even participate in the Battle of Gettysburg to gain the perspective of a soldier in that battle. A teacher almost certainly longs to actually show their class the magnificence of Greek
architecture but has to settle for poorly filmed, dry documentaries or pictures of the site. If that teacher could take their class on a fully interactive fly-through of the Parthenon, the class would probably be in awe almost as much as if they were at the Parthenon.
While many virtual technologies are either under development or outrageously expensive, the consideration of these technologies for education should hold the utmost importance. Soon prices of equipment will drop as the computer gaming world adapts this technology into their hack-em-ups. It is this drop which will see the incorporation of this technology into the schools. Virtual Reality should not be seen as a distraction from a student's homework, as it is often seen, it should be seen as a valuable supplement to a school's curriculum. By incorporating the use of Virtual Reality in schools, students will no longer be sitting in class listening to the drone of a teacher wishing for their Nintendo 64, but they will be interacting with a dynamic curriculum forgetting about the latest version of "Lets kill more evil slimy aliens". When schools keep up to date with the latest technology, students begin to enjoy learning and forget about the arcade.