Future Technology Issue #9

Steven M. Walters, M.Ed.

Kent State University

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The majority of my experience with Virtual Reality programs is limited to flat screen
delivery on the computer. I have played some incredibly realistic looking games that are
dynamic and addictive but not with covering my face and eyes. I can recall two experiences of
interacting with a VR helmet and a simulator, both were in Las Vegas around the turn of the
century at a game center I do not recall the name. The first VR experience was donning a large
helmet and a glove that acted as a laser shooter. You tried to move around and fight your live
opponent. It was clunky and fun but not to the point that it was worth much more than the
novelty.
The second experience was in a driving simulator involving race cars that could exceed
200 mph. To participate we had to take a 15 minute training course. I thought the training was
just a way to pass the time until we were allowed to jump in the simulators and hear loud sounds
and probably feel the seat vibrate while we looked at a 10 foot flat screen panel set in front of us.
Was I wrong! I actually felt the engine of the VR race car! My peripheral vision encompassed
180 degrees! I felt every bump on the track and even felt and heard the wind whistle by my
cockpit. I can still recall that at just under 200 mph I felt a massive rush of adrenaline as I flew
around a track that also allowed me to feel the bank of the turns. I would have paid $100 versus
the $25 it cost to go again, except my hands and arms were exhausted from just 20 minutes in the
simulation.
I have never been in a car at 200 mph going around a track and I will not admit to my
fastest speed on a legal road (I can hint that it was for a brief time in a dragster and I was not
driving), but in that VR simulator I felt like I was actually going as fast as the instruments read
out in front of me. Did I mention it was difficult to take my eyes of off the race track for fear of
crashing and burning into the other drivers that were barely going 100 mph? There was no way I

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can imagine how that VR simulator could have been improved without driving out to the Richard
Petty Driving Experience in North Las Vegas and plopping down $2,700 to drive a real race car
for a few hours of training and 50 laps with a professional race car driver (Drivepetty.com,
2016).
Now, if that simulator could be downsized and made affordable and installed into a high
school for Drivers Education programs the 11 teens that die every day in accidents as a result of
texting might start to decrease (The National Safety Council, 2016). Imagine a simulator that
would allow the student to text and drive and then get pulled over by a VR cop or perhaps create
an accident scenario to show the results of a bicyclists head impacting on the students
windshield and watching people crying and screaming around them. Gruesome as it may sound,
kids need to be made aware that there are consequences to their actions.
For a more suitable simulator for a school in the future, take the example of the Medieval
lesson in chapter 19 with the child playing on his Nintendo (Tiene & Ingram, 1998). I am going
to fast forward the clock on technology and put an Ipad in this kids hands. The game I witnessed
the student play gives me an idea to put Ipads in everyones hands and use a game that allows
students to use the Ipad as a window into a VR world of Medieval times. To give you a better
physical representation of how this works; stand up and hold your arms out in front of you and
read this paper on your tablet. No matter which way you twist and turn your body, raise the
tablet above your head, or even set it on the floor the paper does not change perspective. Now
imagine a simulation that uses the Ipad as window in the middle of a sphere.
The only limitations of the senses would be touch, taste, and smell, although at lunch
time students could eat the same food of the time being studied with the same kind of utensils
that were available at the time period they are studying. Since the lesson is on Medieval times

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we can all go on a field trip to the Excalibur Hotel and Resort in Las Vegas and experience the
Medieval show Tournament of Kings where we can see and hear the dueling knights, smell the
horses mixed in with our chicken and potatoes (MGM Resorts International, 2016). It might be a
little difficult to get parents to sign off on that so we will require many chaperones to make this
happen or get the school to invest in two dozen Ipads and save a considerable amount of money
as well as making new digital technology devices available for students that can enhance their
education for years to come.
The feasibility of purchasing and using Ipads in scenarios such as this is here. If the
appropriate software or VR platform worlds exist for the Ipad or other tablets, this ability to view
history is very practical and highly advisable. The school would also need a serious Internet
connection that allowed for the highest band width. The Medieval example of what I will
SphereView is just one possible program on one device. The same software could be developed
from any moment in Earths history, our explored Solar System, and virtual worlds designed to
expand students thinking on the possibilities of whatever the SphereView Imagineers can design
and develop. Walt Disney has been employing Imagineers who have been creating this kind of
magic for decades with animatronics well before computers and software was even available
.(Walt Disney, 2016).
I feel very strongly that educators should utilize simulators and VR devices that are
designed to educate not just entertain students. The technology we have today is strong enough
to be used as a valid instrument to allow students to see and do things that were barely
imaginable three or four decades ago.
High school chemistry class text books can show a one-dimensional molecule with full
text descriptions and representations of bonding pairs but for a student to be able to put on a VR

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device and be able to see that representation in 3D is even better. Right now there are computer
programs and videos that show 3D molecular shapes. PHET Interactive Simulations, through the
University of Colorado, has made available The Molecule Shapes simulation that is allows
students to add and remove molecular parts and pieces to learn how molecules look and react to
change (PHET, 2016). This is very powerful imaging compared to a static photo in a book.
Then there is Oculus! Oculus is the newest high tech gear that uses a Samsung Galaxy
smartphone that can take you to another world with the Gear VR for under $100 (Oculus, 2016).
Oculus has been developed to the point where users wear a headset that provides fully immersed
images and sounds and now they can manipulate images with their hands through controls that
look more like pieces of exercise equipment rather than the handheld devices for X-box (Oculus,
2016). Now a serious side notea smartphone is being incorporated into VR!
To create deeper learning and critical thinking skills students need to acquire new
knowledge and skills in a way which existing knowledge and skills are modified (Shuell, 1986).
This learning can occur best through experiences and interactions that will help students retain,
comprehend, and apply the knowledge later. Digital technology can help layer these experiences
with a rich diversity of applications and hardware to choose from..
The digital technology available today has reached a point where it can be easily adapted
to run some amazing and complicated applications from military applications and medical
procedures to education and hobby use. The available applications are being created at an
amazing rate by countless people and organizations such Oculus. The only real challenge to use
this technology is the whether or not schools can afford to purchase it.
Fast forward 400 years or sothe first human inhabited space ship has finally reached
the next closest planetary system and post high school students are taking one month study trips

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to the moon for their advanced research in planetary longevity studies . The underground labs
and habitat shelters are self-sustaining by growing food, creating water, growing entirely new
forms of designed crystals, and house a zoo containing the last three centuries of extinct animals
that were reconstituted through amino sequencing and processing in their high school biology
classes. As a teacher I have had each of my students spend 20 hours in the VR chambers
studying the safety procedures of low oxygen situations in case of an emergency event in flight
and while working in the moon caverns without environmental suits. The experiments to form
an atmosphere on the moon, that began 200 years ago have not yet resulted in above ground
breathable atmosphere. Students also were tasked to study the layout of the 1,000 plus
kilometers of tunnel system so they can find their way around without using their tracking
devices to develop environmental awareness. Before we leave I am assigning students to the
holodeck to interact with the effects glaciers had on the Earth before they completely
disappeared just 20 years ago.
That scenario sounds like a potential sci-fi educational thriller but who knows, it may
happen. The whole point to my future scenario is that it is in my opinion that VR will be as
common as cell phones, although probably look more like safety glasses than enclosed helmets,
or rooms that we may today a holodeck. The holodeck may actually become a reality and usable
in education. If students can actually step in to a room and experience a phenomenon in nature
that normally could not occur the implications are mind boggling! If the predictions of
developers at Oculus are correct about the Star Trek Holodeck becoming a reality in just 15
years (Prigg, 2016) the world of education will probably be the third area of its application. The
military will get it first, followed by gamers, then education that is my opinion!

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References
Drivepetty.com, (2016). Retrieved in July 21, 2016 from http://www.drivepetty.com/race
tracks/las-vegas-motor-speedway
MGM Resorts International, (2016). Retrieved on July 12, 2016 from
https://www.excalibur.com/en/entertainment/tournament-of-kings.html
Oculus, (2016). https://www.oculus.com/
PHET, (2016). Retrieved on July 12, 2016 from https://phet.colorado.edu/sims/html/molecule
shapes/latest/moleculeshapes_en.html
Prigg, M., (2016). DailyMail.com. Retrieved on July 12, 2016 from
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3400400/Virtual-reality-WON-T-like
Holodeck-Oculus-admits-Star-Trek-tech-15-years-away.html
Shuell, T., (1986). Cognitive Conceptions of Learning Source: Review of Educational
Research, Vol. 56, No. 4 (Winter, 1986),. American Educational Research Association
The National Safety Council, (2106). Retrieved on July 12, 2016 from
https://www.edgarsnyder.com/car-accident/cause-of-accident/cell-phone/cell-phone
statistics.html
Tiene, D. & Ingram, A. (2001). Exploring current issues in educational technology. New

York: McGraw-Hill.
Walt Disney, (2016). Retrieved on July 12, 2016 from http://wdi.disneycareers.com/en/default/