INTRODUCTION
Virtual reality combines the definitions for both ‘virtual’ and ‘reality. Virtual means near, and reality is what we experience as human beings. So the term ‘virtual reality’ basically means ‘near-reality. It could mean anything, but it refers to a specific type of reality emulation, which is a virtual concept.
As the world we see through our senses and perception systems is quite different. Taste, touch, smell, sight, and hearing in school all learned that we have five senses. They are very obvious sense organs, and humans have many more reasons. For example, there are other sensory inputs as well. These other sensory inputs and other special processing are our brains, ensuring a rich flow of data virtually from the environment to our minds.
All we know is that our reality comes from our senses and thoughts. Our experience of reality is simply a combination of sensory information and our brain’s ideas that make mechanisms for that detailed information that needs to be interpreted. If you present the report made up by your senses, your perception of reality will change in response to it. It would also be like a version of reality that isn’t present here, but it can be perceived apt to your perception. This is also referred to as virtual reality.
Concluding, virtual reality entails presenting our senses with a computer-generated virtual environment that we can explore in some fashion.
Influence of VR in College & Universities
- According to studies presented at UB Tech Conference 2018, it mentioned that around 350 university members had researched the impact of VR in the education sector and it has been noticed that about 28% of educational institutions have adopted VR in their teaching system, and 18% of institutions have fully deployed it.
- Researchers of the University of Maryland conducted research in which they found out about the use of VR technology that helps people recall information in a better way.
- It has increased more future opportunities in this area of the field.An article was also published in gulf news in that UAE.
- Students have already started to pursue their education through Virtual Reality under the instructions of the education ministry.
Universities Using Virtual Reality
The San Diego State University in technology Services has launched a Virtual immersive teaching and learning initiative in 2017. Since then, dozens of instructors and faculty members have tested the use of VR and 360-degree video tools for numerous other disciplines.
The instructor can also check the gear to help students have a new learning environment in their chosen spaces as the learning research studio, which can accommodate up to 40 students at four other stations.
Among many experiments, Gur Windmiller, an instructor in the astronomy department, has found out that VR to be best for teaching astronomy and its concepts as they are very hard to understand with verbal explanations as it makes sense to have a virtual experience as it’s said to be a visual subject as we can create a sandbox where students can just play around and understand astronomical objects and see what happens as it makes it more interesting.
VR Learning
- It is an exciting concept as it helps to grasp complex topics about science, healthcare, and educational material very quickly with the help of visual presentations. It is a methodology where numerous well-renowned universities all over the Students can grasp complex healthcare, science, and other educational material, which helps us with quick presentations.
- This whole methodology has been applied by other well-known universities all over the world, for example, Eastern Michigan University, a professor has built an AR sandbox that uses a Microsoft Xbox camera, digital data projector, and visualization software to make students understand concepts of earth science they can easily understand the ideas behind the formation of mountains, rivers, volcanoes, glaciers, and other geographic fields with the help of visuals.
SELF DIRECTED LEARNING
EON Reality is a self-directed learning movement and is one of the first universities to join. The recent development from UBT has created a massive impact worldwide in a variety of subjects on EON-XR. More than 1,20,000 newly created assets on EON-XR include lessons that cover subjects like architecture and engineering to lab sciences and other topics like conceptual photography and studio design.
STAGECRAFT FOR THEATER STUDENTS
Theater people visualize stage design for their productions, and a project at Maine’s Husson’s University has helped people visualize even better and design for their shows. The university has integrated technology. The technology department also develops AR stagecraft, an app for iPhones and iPad that provides a practical experience that helps students in Husson’s entertainment design their products. It is an aided drafting class imported into the app to give users an adventure on an empty stage. This is just many AR and VR projects to come, promised the institution, culminating in constructing an Interactive Experience (IEX) Center, which will be part of a new College of Business building expected to open in 2021.
VR Teaching
Teachers can use this surreal technology apart from students to make their lessons more effective and transparent. Educators use VR technology in their classrooms in many different ways to add significant value to their teachings. Several teaching programs have been introduced in the past few years in which teachers are trained to use VR tools in their classrooms. VR gadgets like HTC vive have been rapidly used in classrooms to provide a realistic learning experience for the students to observe content in a better way.
VIRTUAL LABS
HANDS ON VR OPHTHALMIC TRAINING
Medical students are currently studying ophthalmology to view the complex structures and functions of the human eye through two-dimensional teaching aids and traditional teaching methods. Deliberate practice is necessary for mastery learning. Currently, this takes place through physical simulators purpose-built for specific procedures; however, how do these students master the basic concepts based on these simulators? To understand complex concepts of ophthalmology there is an innovative way for students to learn. To master these concepts, VR ophthalmic training applications like this can be used.
VIRTUAL ANATOMY SIMULATION
Students of all ages have a keen interest in understanding the complexity a human body has, which is quite tedious and daunting at times. In this era, students primarily learn through written words or images as these formats do not entirely capture the complexities of human anatomy as they represent 3D material in a flat two-dimensional image. To accelerate learning across all age groups and improve student understanding and innovations need to be made in anatomy specifically.
The visual anatomy simulator, developed by EON Reality, helps in enhancing the visualization of complex structures in the human body and can also guarantee that students receive the best education, whether medical undergraduates or postgraduates, and so on. It does not have to worry about damaged cadavers or long waits for lab times.
Also Read: How VR Is Transforming the Online Gaming Industry?
