Virtual reality and training
At Learninglovers.org we had the opportunity to interview Jesús García González, co-founder of Xperiencia Virtual. Below you will find what he shared with us on Virtual Reality (VR):
Virtual training is one of the mainstays of education because it is a super powerful way to change a concept, understand what someone else is thinking, or develop an imaginary world where you can create any environment. It is a way to make the student want to go back to school to learn math, history or whatever subject they are learning at that moment.
Virtual reality in education
In education we were with children with special needs. For autistic children with whom it is difficult to get a response, with Virtual Reality, they get excited. At school you can generate a realistic scenario; for example, in the history classes about the Spanish Civil War, you can recreate the experience, to have the feeling that you are there. It works with gifted students. We want to use it with children who have learning difficulties and distractibility. What you get with Virtual Reality is 100% attention, because there are no possible distractions (no one next to you talking, or a cell phone to consult, etc., like in the classroom).
VR isolates you from the real world and focuses only on what you need. You can create an environment where the learner feels at ease with positive stimuli so that they enjoy the content. It increases the desire to learn and to know how things work.
The advantage of Virtual Reality is that it is a playful space for learning and a super powerful tool. The downside is that there is a very linear structure in education. Teachers tend not to use technology in the classroom to improve students’ attention. The electronic whiteboard, for example, is a wonderful resource, but we found that it was parked there, and the teacher does not want to explore this new technology and does not want to continue with it.
The hard thing in VR is the content. It will be necessary to achieve uniformity in quality. Just as there is ISO 21001 to guarantee quality in educational organizations, we will need to invent a quality standard for education with Virtual Reality. You can find a lot of content that does not have a correct script or that makes you dizzy because it is not of sufficient quality. We use computers with the highest performance available on the market. We are constantly updating them because we can not afford to have latency in perception because man perceives it and loses continuity, the sense of reality or coherence, which causes confusion.
In Spain, we are probably among those in Europe who know the most about how people react to this technology because we have seen thousands of people live. Out of every 100 people, there are usually 2 who behave differently. For example, if you are analyzing a rollercoaster VR simulation, there are always two that do not float compared to the rest that do.
Virtual Reality Training for Industry
Virtual Reality does not only excel in education. It is also helpful to overcome a person’s problems with the execution of a task. You can see what abilities a person has before they make a mistake. This is true in the industry. A real case is a call center with a very high staff turnover. a 100 people come in a day who need training. There is an experience in ten levels so that the company can see who they have passed without effort. At Repsol, a virtual situation generated with wind and stress conditions, which can endanger people’s lives in real life, enables them to train specialists.
This tool also has many possibilities in 3D design because it is millimetric: when you create your signature, it is as if you are designing on paper. The creative ways to express yourself are enormous. It also allows you to see elements by scale.
Virtual Reality cinemas will exist. The sound also accompanies the distance from the object. To generate these Virtual Reality experiences, you need computer scientists, animation experts, an art director, a storyteller, and content experts (eg, doctors, architects).
Closure
What we recommend is to be passionate about Virtual Reality. You can not just go in for the money (although it is true that everyone who tries it gets passionate about it). VR is going to change people, our professional and personal relationships.