7 THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT … ™
VR Headsets
Scenario
For many years, Professor Keyes has taught a course on
ethics that includes various dilemmas to explore notions
of ethics in society. In the classic Trolley Problem, a runaway railcar is bearing down on five people on the train
tracks. Students are told to imagine that they can pull a
lever to send the railcar along another track where just
one person will be killed. What do you do?
Discussions are always heated, with students arguing
about the morality of action versus inaction relative to the
question of five lives versus one. Responses are usually
split between pulling the lever and not, and usually some
students say they believe they should pull the lever but
don’t think they could actually do it.
This semester, Keyes brings several virtual-reality headsets
to class on “runaway train” day. First, the students discuss
the dilemma as usual—sitting in class, debating the issues
surrounding pulling the lever, and noting each student’s
decision about what to do. Then the students take turns
with the VR headsets. When they put on the headsets, they
see and hear a simulation of the scene. By moving their
heads, they can look around at the train car and the
people on the tracks. The sound of the approaching
railcar gets louder. The sensory inputs provided through
the headsets—along with the urgency as the scene
unfolds and the railcar nears—put students into the virtual world of the dilemma. By way of a joystick, they choose
whether or not to pull the lever.
Some students are visibly affected by the immediacy of the
experience. The feeling of being present in that situation
is powerful, evoking a visceral reaction among most of the
students. The students compare their decisions from the
discussion to how they behaved in the simulation, discovering that in quite a few cases, students changed their
answers—in both directions. Moving the dilemma from
an abstract discussion in a classroom to a vivid, highly realistic virtual experience facilitates new questions about
the influence of emotion and the pragmatic aspects of
morality. The class talks at length about whether ethics is
relative and what it means for someone to respond one
way in the discussion but differently in the virtual world.
E D U C AU S E L E A R N I N G I N I T I AT I V E
educause.edu/ELI | ELI 7 Things You Should Know About ... ™
1
What is it?
2
How does it work?
Virtual reality (VR) uses visual, auditory, and sometimes other sensory inputs—such as tactile or haptic feedback—to create an immersive, computer-generated
environment. These virtual environments can be fictitious,
such as the fantasy world of a video game, or digital replicas
of real locations, such as a museum or historical site. The
goal of VR is to create a user experience of being in that
virtual world. VR headsets fully cover users’ eyes and often
ears, immersing the user in the digital experience. The
headsets also track head movements, heightening the feeling of presence by allowing users to look around the virtual
environment and see what they would actually see if they
were in that place. Some VR headset systems also incorporate motion-tracking technology, allowing users to interact
with virtual objects using their hands. The effect of these
sensory inputs working in unison can be extremely powerful, one in which the mind starts to see the virtual as real.
An emerging class of consumer-level VR headsets is putting
these tools into the hands of more users at lower cost,
prompting an upsurge in development, improving the
experience, and expanding the range of uses.
VR headsets look something like scuba or ski goggles,
often with headphones. They block ambient light and sound
and present a stereoscopic view of a computer-generated
environment. Motion sensors follow the movement of the
users’ heads—if they turn to the right, what they see in the
virtual environment also turns that direction. In some cases,
motion is controlled by the virtual world—one common
demo puts users on a virtual roller coaster, which runs
through the ups, downs, and loops of the track. In other
applications, users can move themselves through a virtual
space, either with a joystick or by physically moving their
bodies. In one VR application for anatomy, the application
shows a 3D representation of the human body; users can
rotate the body in virtual space, use various commands
to highlight or add and remove layers of the body, and
manipulate individual body parts to inspect them and see
how they fit together.
7 THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT … ™
DECEMBER 2014
VR Headsets
3
Who’s doing it?
The most common consumer VR headsets currently
are the Oculus Rift and the Sony Morpheus, both of which
use dedicated hardware and controllers. At the other end of
the spectrum is the Google Cardboard, which is a DIY kit of
a piece of cardboard that is folded into a viewer that holds an
Android smartphone. Many of the early applications for VR
headsets focus on gaming, but developers are beginning to
investigate educational uses of the technology. One early
adopter, YouVisit, has tailored its complete library of over a
thousand virtual college and university campus tours to play
on VR headsets. The EUseum is a virtual museum in which
viewers can view art from the Dutch Rijksmuseum. The VR
headset allows users to explore the museum at their own
pace, examining high-resolution versions of real works of art.
The Immersive Education Initiative is a collaboration of
colleges, universities, research institutes, and companies
working to define and develop VR headset standards, refine
best practices, and establish communities of support for
numerous immersive technologies, including virtual reality,
augmented reality, and mixed reality.
4
Why is it significant?
VR headsets provide a remarkable feeling of presence
in a virtual world. The result can be overpowering at first, with
some users experiencing vertigo. Some contend that if the
virtual reality is sufficiently immersive, users no longer feel
vertigo but instead have a feeling of telepresence—the sense
that you are actually in that world. In this way, VR headsets
have the potential to provide compelling learning opportunities within safe and effective simulations. VR offers potential
for training in dangerous or risky activities, such as military,
firefighting, or peacekeeping initiatives. The existence of a
convincing VR environment could spark creativity in students,
who might construct their own hardware and then design
content or begin with content and then develop hardware.
5
What are the downsides?
As with television, film, and video games, any new
immersive technology raises the specter of excessive involvement, which could mean students have fewer opportunities
for involvement in the social aspects of learning and less
connection with the college community. Budget may also be
a consideration, given that creating high-resolution virtual
worlds and outfitting an entire class with this technology is a
costly proposition. In addition, VR headsets pose accessibility
obstacles for users with visual or auditory disabilities. Currently,
games and demos are available, but learning simulations for
VR headsets are still rare, making it difficult to demonstrate
the potential of this technology for academic use. As wearable
technology, these devices tend to be clumsy, in part because
most of them continue to require wired connections.
6
Where is it going?
7
What are the implications for
teaching and learning?
Prototype models have produced compelling results,
but interaction in the environment is often still limited to using
a joystick or gamepad. Haptic gloves and other motion-sensing
technology will likely be incorporated in more systems to
provide an increasingly immersive experience for VR headsets.
Resolution and response times are improving, and headsets
may soon be wireless. VR headsets that use mobile devices may
provide a less expensive alternative than models that depend
on a PC or game controller. Samsung has partnered with
Oculus recently to produce the Samsung Gear VR, a lightweight headset into which users can snap a tablet computer.
A similar headset, the recently announced Carl Zeiss VR One,
is compatible with various iOS or Android smartphones.
Using headsets to visit undersea environments, desert wastes,
the floor of the stock market, or the surface of Mars, students
can explore content in a way not possible in the classroom. For
those studying music or dance, virtual reality offers the opportunity to watch demonstrations of technique repeatedly from
different vantage points to better assimilate the skills on
display. Medical students could observe surgery multiple
times from optimal viewpoints, with the ability to rewind and
reexamine technique. Students in literature could visit
Victorian London, while learners in other fields could visit
microscopic worlds or travel among the stars. Observing such
learning experiences, psychologists and learning specialists
may even uncover new data about how humans think, react,
and learn within specified environments.
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