Many of us have seen the movie “Ready Player One” by Steven Spielberg. In the film, people strive to solve the hidden puzzles by James Halliday in a virtual world using virtual reality (VR) devices. It seems that Steven Speilberg has early predicted that in the future world, using a VR headset in everyday lives would become a new norm—which is valid to the extent that more VR devices are being sold recently at a lower cost as the market grows.
Although VR may be seen as the new gaming or entertaining device, it has significant potential to become the next educational tool. Most of our traditional education was based on a process of retaining factual information through reading. Reading is an incredible way to learn new subjects, but it still has limitations to learn with a full experience. And many people prefer different styles of learning when it comes to education as well. Some people may be auditory learners, kinesthetic learners, reading & writing learners, and visual learners. However, we can help all different learners with VR devices come together and learn with a fully immersive experience. With VR (as more contents are produced for education), we can learn the same topic by reading from a different perspective.
For instance, if we learn about WWII through reading, we will only know how the event progressed as if we were looking from a 3rd-person point of view. We will never truly know how devasting the sacrifices have been in the war scenes from a 1st-person perspective. But if we use VR to simulate the war as if we were there, it will alert us of how deadly a war can be to our world. By slightly changing our thoughts about something, it can create a significant impact on our future. If more people know how it feels to be in a particular situation without having to live through it, it will help people learn how others think and take action in the right direction to better humanity.
