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... n control? "i fear of denied access: Whether VR is a wonderful or a terrible place, everyone should have the right to be there; who gets in and how? "i fear of abandonment: what if VR is so compelling that people don " it want to come out, who will mind reality? If I don " it get virtual, will I be left all alone? Fear of the technology may be both the most subtle and the most important challenge to public acceptance of VR as a suitable medium for children. Once we acknowledge this fear, we can address it rationally. Of course, fear is not rational, it is emotional and not easily assuaged.
However, I will suggest three approaches to reducing VR technophobia: 3. 1. Education: We need first to understand what VR is and is not. We must separate science from fiction; VR is not a book by William Gibson, it is an interface technique that now allows us more immediate access to a subset of what computers already do. We can make the technology available in the public domain for widespread exploration and evaluation. VR is a new information medium, and like any media, can be used to disseminate propaganda, advertisement, and misinformation.
Curriculum that addresses the use and misuse of media exists in most schools, and can easily be expanded to include computer-mediated information spaces. 3. 2. Research and Co-development: By sharing experiences as we continue to explore, observe, evaluate and refine VR, we increase professional and public understanding of the technology. Developers present progress reports and research papers on their systems in professional and public conferences internationally. Educators are initiating formal research on VR issues such as transfer of learning, appropriate curriculum implementation, elements of effective VR design, multi-modal perception and work-load distribution in VR, and the psychological and social impact of the technology " is use.
Interface experts stress the value of involving end-users in the development of computer technology during the design phase. Given evidence that VR is safe and useful, we can refine learning applications along with the technology itself by establishing a dialogue between developers and the educational community to determine the appropriate use of VR in schools and in training. 3. 3. Historical perspective: People, individually and collectively, learn from mistakes. The big lesson of the Twentieth Century is that careless implementation of technology can cause large-scale and lasting negative effects. It is difficult to reverse the momentum of old mistakes, but it is easier to avoid new ones.
Issues of power, control and access in VR are being addressed in the context of Constitutional rights: the Electronic Frontier Foundation exists to encourage the legal extension of First Amendment assurances of freedom and privacy into electronically mediated environments. Worrying about humanity seems to be an inevitable component of social consciousness. 'i Plato banned the art of drama from his republic because he thought that humans were in danger of confusing art and life. ^i [Laurel 1990 ] People are notoriously suspicious of 'i alternate^i realities; the very name Virtual Reality is enough to raise the hackles of those who fear that other people can " it make distinctions between different kinds of experience. Sometimes we just don " it give people enough credit for common sense. I think children are far more likely to mistake Disneyland for the real world than they are to confuse VR and reality. Summary New technology obviously needs thoughtful introduction into classrooms. Technology does not, by itself, improve education, and even the most promising educational innovation needs skillful application to be effective.
But, there is clearly the potential that VR learning environments can be powerful educational experiences. The significance of VR to education may be wider than particular learning applications. VR provides a testbed for exploring the very foundations of education. What we teach our children springs from our assumptions about how the world works and what is valuable.
Our methods of teaching are based on our understanding of the role of the mind in learning. Educators are re-examining the philosophical foundations of education [Goodman 1984 ] by comparing the implications of Objectivism to those of Constructivism: 'i Objectivism and Constructivism represent alternative conceptions of learning and thinking... Objectivism assumes that the role of mental activities is to represent the real world... and that the role of education is to help students learn about the world and replicate its content and structure in their thinking. Constructivism, on the other hand, claims that we construct our own reality through interpreting perceptual experiences... that reality is in the mind of the knower rather than in the object of our knowing.
Constructivists, rather than prescribing learning outcomes, focus on tools and environments for helping learners interpret the multiple perspectives of the world in creating their own. ^i [Jonassen 1990 ] By making VR tools and environments available to educators, we may discover more about the very process of learning. By participating in the development of VR, educators can guide the growth of the technology, and perhaps influence the course of educational change. As we test and refine this unique learning environment together, we might even hope that VR really will help us to teach more effectively, and that we will see more often that bright light of understanding in our students'i eyes. References: Belkin, G.
S. , Gray, J. L. Educational Psychology. Dubuque, Iowa: Wm. C. Brown 1977 Bricken, W.
VEOS Preliminary Functional Design. Technical Report, Human Interface Technology Laboratory, U. of Washington, Seattle: 1991 Bricken, M. No Interface to Design. Cyberspace: The First Steps. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA: 1991 Bricken, M.
A Description of the Human Interface Technology Laboratory " is Virtual Worlds. Technical Report, Human Interface Technology Laboratory, U. of Washington, Seattle: 1990 Bruner, J. On Knowing: Essays for the Left Hand.
Cambridge, Ma: Harvard University Press 1962 Bruner, J. Actual Minds, Possible Worlds. Cambridge, Ma: Harvard University Press: 1986 Clark, R. E. Reconsidering Research on Learning from Media. Review of Educational Research, Winter 1983, Vol. 53, No. 4, pp. 445 - 459 Elias, Jim (Executive Director, US West Communications).
Tele-Virtuality and the Potential Role for Communications. presentation, Industry Symposium on Virtual Worlds Technology, Seattle, WA; Feb. 1991 Furness, T. Visually Coupled Information Systems. ARPA Conference on Biocybernetic Applications for Military Systems, Chicago, IL, April 1978 Furness, T. Harnessing Virtual Space. SID International Symposium, May 1988 Furness, T.
Retinal Scanners for Head-Mounted Display. Washington Technology Center Presentation, Seattle WA, 1991. Goodman, N. Of Mind and Other Matters.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984 Gardner, Booth (Governor, WA). in, A New Learning Enterprise. Business Week, Dec. 10, 1990 Gore, Al (Senator, TN). The Digitization of Schools. Business Week, Dec. 10, 1990 Harrow, A. A Taxonomy of the Psychomotor Domain.
New York James, W. Talks to Teachers. New York: W. W. Norton, 1958. (originally published, 1892) Johnson, D. W. & Johnson, R.
T. Interdependence and Interpersonal Attraction Among Heterogeneous Individuals: A Theoretical Formulation and a Meta-Analysis of the Research. Review of Educational Research, Spring 1983 Jonassen, D. H. Objectivism vs.
Constructivism: Do We Need a New Philosophical Paradigm? University of Colorado (unpublished) Kohlberg, L. Early Education: A cognitive-Developmental View. Child Development, 1968 Vol. 39, pp. 1013 - 1062 Laurel, B.
The Art of Human-Computer Interface Design. Addison-Wesley, 1990 pp. 481 - 482 Leonard, G. B. Education and Ecstasy.
New York: Dell 1968 Paper, S. Mindstorms. New York: Basic Books 1980 Perelman, L. J.
A New Learning Enterprise. Business Week, Dec. 10, 1990 Rogers, C. Freedom to Learn. Columbus, Ohio: Charles E.
Merrill, 1969 Silberman, C. Crisis in the Classroom. New York: Random House, 1970 Sturman, D. J. , Zeltzer, D. , Piper, S. Hands-on Interaction with Virtual Environments.
Proceedings ACM SIGGRAPH Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology, Williamsburg, VA: Nov. 1989, pp. 19 - 24 Vygotsky, L. Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1978 Zeltzer, D. Virtual Environments: Where Are We Going?
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Research essay sample on Virtual Reality Learning Environments
