TO virtual reality experience created by students at The New School in New York City is designed to take viewers to an almond farm in California and illustrate the effects of pesticides on bee colonies. At first, participants wearing a virtual reality headset can walk around the virtual trees and listen to the rustling of leaves and the hum of bees.
Then, with the press of a button, users can choose a different perspective.
“You become a bee,” explains Maya Georgieva, who directs the university Innovation Center“and you get an idea of what happens to the bee colony when the pesticides are spread everywhere to protect the trees and you can see what is in the hive while the bee fights.”
The goal is not just to create a virtual field trip to a farm that students in a classroom may not have access to. The hope is that immersive technology will provide a shift in perspective that is simply impossible in the physical world, but can be simulated in emerging virtual reality spaces.
“This is a kind of empathy machine and I think it has enormous emotional power,” says Georgieva, who has become a leading voice on where virtual reality is headed through it. blog and public speaking. Flying like a bee, she says, helps users “really embody this moment we live in: that of climate change and some of the decisions we make.”
She says some of the best examples of virtual reality in education are short, intense experiences (like the student project with the bees) that are carefully placed into larger classroom lessons.
“It's not about the five, 10, 15 minutes on the headphones,” he says, “it's what happens before and what happens after this, it just sets the stage for more criticism, for deeper conversations, for more curiosity.” .
EdSurge sat down with Georgieva after a talk he gave last month at the SXSW EDU festival about where he sees virtual reality in education, what types of applications it is best for, and what its limitations are.
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Cloudy, Spotify, Youtube or wherever you listen to podcasts, or use the player on this page.
