VR in Education

It's interesting that this showed up today

I'd just paused a couple of days as I was really excited about the potential mixed reality, VR & AR have for education. I typed out a bunch of my thoughts, and then thought maybe I'm getting ahead of myself, and should think about it for a while.

So, I thought about language learning. I taught English in Japan for a year. I tried to learn Japanese while I was there. I learned some. I can get around, but I'm not fluent by any stretch of the imagination.

So, I put myself back in Japan. With a pair of glasses. The glasses are connected to a scanner that scans my surroundings. I can set the glasses in various ways: It can scan the area, and each thing the glasses recognize, it can label. There's a car. The glasses highlight the car, show me the character for "car" and I hear it pronounced in my ears. It doesn't intrude on anyone else. 

Anything else I see -- it gets labeled. It can quiz me. when It highlights the car and with no delay I call it out.... it doesn't highlight it anymore... then more and better and better.... without having to sit down and force attention, without memorization, without drills... fluency could be achieved at enormously accelerated levels.

Children who learn the language and everything else the best are those kids whose parents talk to them. They're seeing things and having them labeled, learning little bits -- and learning it constantly.

It can work the same for teaching skills mechanics, technicians, surgeons, and pilots. (What's next... the glasses can highlight the surroundings, and prompt at the right time.)

Imagine learning history, by having it created in front of you, or with something like google street view in History. (Victorian London in Pictures) 

Or, check out the last 8 years in London on Schrewsbury Road use the clock on the street view map, upper left.
(London Street Scene, Google Maps, with History view.)

MVIS will be everywhere.

Thanks to the French Investor.


Virtual Reality Training

Virtual reality hasn't quite changed the world the way we were promised, but that doesn't mean its effects aren't profound. In recent years, VR has even made positive impacts in a somewhat surprising place: the restaurant industry. 

In the midst of high turnover, cook shortages and rising minimum wages, VR training companies have positioned the technology as a potential remedy for many of the issues the industry faces today: more accessible and in-depth training, improved employee retention, targeted advancement of high-performing employees, and, through that, better margins and long-term sustainability.