Alternate Reality in the Classroom by James

Alternate Reality in the Classroom by James - February 2018 Scholarship Essay

“Alternate reality” is a relatively new technology that allows the user to wear specialized hardware, be that glasses, goggles, a headset, etc, and have the reality around them altered, usually by either adding more information, or completely replacing it. The former is known as “augmented reality”, AR, and the latter “virtual reality”, VR. AR is still very much in its infancy, but VR is now quite advanced, and enjoys widespread use. VR as a technology had a very rough start; perhaps the first product to be released that we would recognize as VR was the Nintendo "Virtual Boy", a game console released in July 1995 which, as anyone who tried it will tell you, was awful. It was extremely uncomfortable, and was only capable of displaying two colors: black, and bright red. Needless to say, the technology has improved drastically since then. Today's VR headsets create incredible environments, have near perfect head tracking, and are much more comfortable, if still a little heavy to wear. This technology, along with what exists of AR and the rest of alternate reality, are used primarily for gaming, but have many applications across a wide variety of fields. One field I feel it will soon play a big role in is education.

The most obvious application of VR in education is in history classes. VR especially excels at photo-realistic environments, effectively placing the user in the environment it displays. Using this, instead of simply telling students about ancient civilizations, and long passed battles, the class could simply be taken to a recreation of them in VR. One issue I personally always had in history class was making it feel real, that these are actual people and real places I’m learning about. Being able to visit the locations and see the people as more than just pictures would have helped me greatly, not just in learning the material, but also to appreciate it more than I did.

Though AR is, like I said, still very limited in its capability, it too will be very useful in the classroom. One major application of it could be in math classes. Visualization is on of the biggest challenges in any math class. Pictures and videos can only get you so far, and passing out physical models is cumbersome and limited. AR would allow instructors to create fully interactive 3-d models of anything they want, and have them on display in the classroom. For example, it is very difficult to imagine certain polyhedra, but AR could place them in your hand for you to examine.

The applications of alternate reality are endless. Between the exploration VR allows and the visualization AR will allow, it will solve many problems facing education today. I have no doubt that this technology will be used to improve education in the future.