Virtual Reality - Task 1

The technology I have chosen to write on is Virtual Reality. The reason I have chosen this technology is because I believe that it could be the next big thing in education, as there are plenty of areas where it can foster creativity and further students learning. It could make learning fun and exciting in a way that won’t make it feel like it is a chore for younger students or even students in general. Nowadays lots of kids prefer to learn using simple technologies such as canvas, prezi or even as simple ad powerpoint presentations. Many kids, in fact teachers as well, are scared to try new things in the classroom because they don’t know how it will go down and they don’t know if it would make it harder for students to learn and to be creative with learning.

Author Image: Shira Charif

One area which I believe that virtual reality could really aid and help with in the classroom would be in mathematics. Some students have a hard time with and struggle with understanding and comprehending the idea of three dimensional shapes. One of the ways the virtual reality technology will assist in this area is that, with the technology you can put the headset on, and use all these different pen tools and drawing tools in the air and they will stay on the “screen” that you can see with the headset on and walk around it, almost as if you are in a new dimension. Because of this feature the teacher can put the headset on and draw a three dimensional shape such as a hexagonal pyramid, or something as simple as a cylinder and get some students to put the headset on, and allow them to explore the shape and walk around it so that they can

understand how the shape actually wraps around and

truly is three dimensional.

Author image: Shira Charif

Another cool thing about this technology is that when one child has a headset on, you could connect what they are seeing to the main screen in the classroom for the other children to see to get an idea before they put the actual headset on and explore the three dimensional shape properly. One implication with this technology is that is could get quite pricey if you have to buy more than one headset, where on the classroom it would be preferable to have at least two headsets. Overall, I think this technology could be really useful in the classroom in other learning areas as well and could truly aid in fostering creativity and learning.

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-- Author Images: Shira Charif