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Oculus Rift CEO Says Classrooms of the Future Will Be In VR Goggles 182

Posted by samzenpus from the watch-and-learn dept.
jyosim writes "Oculus Rift isn't just for gaming. Brendan Iribe, CEO of the VR company, says the immersive tech will be "one of the most transformative platforms for education of all time." In an interview with Chronicle of Higher Education, he imagined laser-scanning every object in the Smithsonian for students to explore, and collaborating in shared virtual spaces rather than campuses. "The next step past that is when you have shared space, and not only do you believe that this object is right there in front of me, but I look around and I see other people just like we see each other now, and I really, truly believe that you’re right in front of me. We can look at each others’ eyes. If you look down at something, I can look down at the same time. And it’s every bit as good as this. And if we can make virtual reality every bit as good as real reality in terms of communications and the sense of shared presence with others, you can now educate people in virtual classrooms, you can now educate people with virtual objects, and we can all be in a classroom together [virtually], we can all be present, we can have relationships and communication that are just as good as the real classroom," he says.
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Oculus Rift CEO Says Classrooms of the Future Will Be In VR Goggles More

Oculus Rift CEO Says Classrooms of the Future Will Be In VR Goggles

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  • why? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Karmashock ( 2415832 ) on Sunday September 14, 2014 @11:04PM (#47905469)

    Why does the classroom of the future need to be VR? I would think the typical computer monitor would be sufficient.

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Teresita ( 982888 )
      Actually the biggest issue these days is when people go "Where's the phone on my phone?" People look at their cell phone and wail, "Where the hell is the phone on my phone?"

      • The phone won't exist for much longer. Its already mostly a computer at this point and has no need for a conventional phone network to communicate between handsets.

        But I don't see what that has to do with VR in the class room and why we should go to the effort?

        • Re:why? (Score:5, Insightful)

          by davester666 ( 731373 ) on Monday September 15, 2014 @12:58AM (#47905993) Journal

          This should finish off the job of not educating a good portion of the population. Between not being able to 'VR' into the class because the internet bill couldn't be paid, to the VR helmet being broken/used for video games instead, to even less 'classroom discipline' [kids actually paying attention to the teacher], to the biggest one, chiefly even less social interaction between kids.

          Sure, some kids can successfully learn this way, but not a lot.

          And rich kids parents know it's all about connections while growing up, so they will still bundle them off actual schools.

          But I can totally see that 'inner city' schools will be forced to spend billions on this technology, and it will be sold to the public as 'giving the poorest children the biggest hand up". And teachers of those schools will generally be for it because it means far less stress in class trying to get children/teenagers to pay attention without being able to discipline them [they will just cut of any student that bothers them] and it makes it that much harder for the students to knife the teacher.

          So, this is really a 'win' for America. Spend billions of dollars to help the poor, by giving that money to several large corporations, then shove it out into the poorest schools and forget about it.

          • Add to that, about 10-20% of the population get motion sick using the kind of VR in Oculus Rift (myself included - I can use it for 2-5 minutes, depending on the mode). It's ludicrous to imagine building a school that would exclude 20% of the potential pupils on some random criterion. You might as well make schools that didn't let in gingers...

            • This won't eliminate the need for kids to physically attend school. It's not like parents will suddenly be able to leave their kids home alone with vr glasses and a net connection. One thing teachers DO do is assure that there's an adult present when the kid's learning.

              Besides, most people don't want 3d. Look at the HDTV market. Given the choice between 3d HD and 4k TV in 2d, people are salivating over 4k. 3D? I don't know anyone with a 3d tv who has actually USED the 3d feature.

          • I can totally see that 'inner city' schools will be forced to spend billions on this technology, and it will be sold to the public as 'giving the poorest children the biggest hand up".

            They said the same thing about computers (ie we would not need teachers) and then the same about the Internet. Hasn't happened. I believe a similar thing was said about tape recorders when they first came out too.

            Anyway, why does some CEO get so much news coverage? As CEO of a VR company, he would say that wouldn't he?

          • to even less 'classroom discipline' [kids actually paying attention to the teacher], to the biggest one, chiefly even less social interaction between kids.

            Sure, some kids can successfully learn this way, but not a lot.

            Isn't most "classroom discipline" quashing all attempts at social interaction? You raise some odd concerns.

    • Re:why? (Score:5, Funny)

      by sunderland56 ( 621843 ) on Sunday September 14, 2014 @11:55PM (#47905737)

      Why does the classroom of the future need to be VR?

      So that your teacher can be a smokin' hot babe? In every single class?

    • Re:why? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Monday September 15, 2014 @12:50AM (#47905955)

      Actually, that would be a pretty bad idea: https://edutechdebate.org/ict-... [edutechdebate.org]

      Learning is really not about technology, as soon as pen, paper and books are available.

      • "Learning is really not about technology, as soon as pen, paper and books are available."

        You mean using a 2D-plotter (hand) to write symbolic data on 'paper' and store it in 'books' isn't technology?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by gweihir ( 88907 )

          Thanks for giving an example of functional illiteracy. It is one of the problems people relying too much on computers have.

          If you try really, really hard and read my statement again several times, you might notice that I actually said that pen, paper and books are technology, but that they are enough technology for learning.

    • It doesn't. This is why it's called marketing and not science.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Alejux ( 2800513 )
      No, a computer monitor is not enough. It's one thing to watch something on a screen, it's another to be in another world or environment. Also, you can't socialize much using a monitor. The most you can do is use text messages and awkward videos. With VR, you can interact with other, as if you were in the real world, while walking in some street in ancient Rome, or cruising on a ship traveling through the human body, or the solar system.

      • VR isn't a matrix spinal tap. Its a monitor pasted onto your face with head tracking technology to sync the image to your head position. Lets not get carried away.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Alejux ( 2800513 )
          Unless you want students to have sex with each other, visual and audio stimulation, with limited hand haptics, good hand and facial tracking and binaural audio is all you need for what's been proposed. All this will be easily obtainable within 5 years or less.

    • Even a monitor is useless.

  • An Unbiased Opinion, Eh? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by NotSanguine ( 1917456 ) on Sunday September 14, 2014 @11:23PM (#47905571) Journal

    In other news, a spokesman for gun maker Smith & Wesson said today that "gun ranges are the classrooms of the future." Film at eleven.

  • Transformative Platforms! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 14, 2014 @11:27PM (#47905593)

    List of transformative, disruptive, game-changing, paradigm-shifting technologies that have changed education forever:

    1) Radio
    2) Televison
    3) Language Labs
    4) Personal Computers
    5) Laptops
    6) Tablets
    7) Second Life/Virtual Worlds
    8) Gamification
    9) Eight-Track Tape Recorders

    Thanks to these transformative platforms, the classroom of today is nothing like the ancient classroom of Rome or Greece, or even the quaint antiquity of the early twentieth century. Education is completely different now! No more reading, writing, and arithmetic: thanks to transformative platforms and gadgets, kids have no need for such lessons! And it's all thanks to visionaries and other CEO's who haven't seen the inside of a classroom since their childhood.

    • List of transformative, disruptive, game-changing, paradigm-shifting technologies that have changed education forever:

      9) Eight-Track Tape Recorders

      I hesitate to ask what sort of an education you got that involved eight track tapes..... did it also involve the back seat of a 1970 Camaro?

      • Re:Transformative Platforms! (Score:4, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 15, 2014 @12:52AM (#47905963)

        I taught for a while in the early 2000's. We had to do inventory every year, and our department had a number of giant boxes that incorporated speakers, amps, and eight-track players. No one knew how to work them or if they even worked, and no one remembered ever having any eight-track tapes to play in them, but we had the machines in pristine condition. They'd been moved from the old school building to the new one in the late 90's and kept in the teachers' workroom, and we doubted anyone had touched them in twenty years. After much wrangling, some of us convinced the department chair to let us asset-transfer them back to the school system's central warehouse; we gained an invaluable amount of storage space from the deal.

        One aged teacher had 16mm filmstrips. His chair wouldn't let him transfer the filmstrips from his inventory, even though he had no projector for them -- it had broken back during some Presidential administration I probably didn't remember. He said the students had never learned anything from the filmstrips anyway.

        Every year the system would buy more clutter that wasn't actually useful for teaching, just for looking good for having new technology. Once the technology isn't new anymore, it finally becomes licit to tell the truth: that the filmstrips and record players never really helped the kids learn to read or add and subtract. The cheapest things -- pencil and paper, chalk, books -- were the most effective tools, because they gave practice. The rest was just inventory, or rather it became inventory once the next fad came along and the hype surrounding the previous fad had faded enough that we were allowed to think that it wasn't the silver bullet that would magically teach the students in place of practice and human interaction.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by LoRdTAW ( 99712 )

          If you really look at how schools piss money away on tech gadgets only to let them collect dust you will find incredible waste. For as long as I can remember, the AV equipment at the various schools I attended sat unused for 99.99% of the time. For an hour session there simply wasn't time to get the cart, set it up, show a video and break it down for the next class. Most schools don't have a dedicated AV department unless they specialize in AV production. So the teachers are left to retrieve and set up the

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Nice one! Although Language Labs are beneficial in some stages of learning a new language.

    • To be fair, those things did transform education.

      1. Radio enabled students to study the ever-changing reality of modern global events, rather than merely studying literal "textbook cases", supporting a paradigm of learning by observing, rather than learning by prescribed theory.
      2. Television, in addition to carrying on the benefit of radio, shows students the world rather than simply referring to points on a map. Different cultures and environments can be described in full color with fluid video, rather than hop

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by martas ( 1439879 )

        Television, in addition to carrying on the benefit of radio, shows students the world rather than simply referring to points on a map. Different cultures and environments can be described in full color with fluid video, rather than hoping the student understands a short text description that too often seems absurd due to its foreign context.

        Really? [youtube.com]

        • Television, in addition to carrying on the benefit of radio, shows students the world rather than simply referring to points on a map. Different cultures and environments can be described in full color with fluid video, rather than hoping the student understands a short text description that too often seems absurd due to its foreign context.

          Really? [youtube.com]

          Yes [learner.org], really [openculture.com]. There's much more, but you can find that for yourself. No, it doesn't replace classroom learning, but it can be an excellent adjunct to it.

    • Segway?
      Flying Car?

    • You have a point, but most of these did enhance education somewhat, although none really revolutionized education.

      More tools is good, VR has a lot of potential. But I don't think that VR should be inside the class room, it should be inside a VR lab, like schools have computer labs.

  • The worst use of VR ever (Score:5)

    by rebelwarlock ( 1319465 ) on Sunday September 14, 2014 @11:28PM (#47905599)
    Yes, let's strap on VR goggles all day for classes which aren't enhanced in even the smallest way by VR. Hell, why stop there? Keep them on constantly. It'll be great when grocery shopping.

    • ... will be easier if one can cover their eyes in class without arousing suspicion.

      Still gotta work on that drool from the corner of the mouth.

    • Sounds like the Magic Schoolbus.

    • I dunno... Geography and Chemistry seem like they could be enhanced with VR. Sure, 90% of the time, even in those ideal classes, you would not be using VR... but 20 minutes of VR could likely replace 30 days of failed learning about electron "orbits" and sharing.

  • I don't buy isolated VR as a learning tool for wide use.

  • I truly hope not (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Camael ( 1048726 ) on Sunday September 14, 2014 @11:35PM (#47905637)

    I am fairly uncomfortable with the thought of "one of the most transformative platforms for education of all time" being under the direct control of private corporate interests. Whose interest lies in maximizing shareholder profits at the expense of everyone else.

    Aside from imposing a royalty/licence fee on every user, having platform control indirectly enables thought control in the form of restricting easy access to the mass population. The publication of material dealing with sensitive but important topics such as religion, abortion, gay rights, racism, terrorism, prostitution, child pornography etc can be curbed simply by denying them access to the platform. We are already seeing this happen to a lesser extent with Facebook (deleted posts, banned accounts etc) and Apple store (all forms of porn).

    As an analogous situation, imagine if the creation of (text)books was originally patented. The patent holder would then be able to ensure that any textbooks whose contents disagreed with him do not get published simply by denying a licence to the publisher for that book.

    • As an analogous situation, imagine if the creation of (text)books was originally patented. The patent holder would then be able to ensure that any textbooks whose contents disagreed with him do not get published simply by denying a licence to the publisher for that book.

      So, kind of like Common Core (brought to you by the Pearson's Corporation, All Rights Reserved).

    • Re:I truly hope not (Score:4, Informative)

      by Harlequin80 ( 1671040 ) on Sunday September 14, 2014 @11:58PM (#47905755)

      That would surely depend on whether the platform was closed to content. I could be very wrong here but I thought the Occulus was merely a way of viewing content not in anyway controlling what the content is.

      In the same way that an iPod can be filled with MP3s directly or via the itunes store means Apple doesn't control the content. It can control whats on iTunes but that is a different thing to controlling what is on your iPod.

      I guess I see it as someone having the patent on LCD screens (which I'm sure there is). They don't control what you see on the LCD.

    • Aside from.... blah blah blah Facebook Apple

      You forgot the Great Firewall of China.

      As an analogous situation, imagine if the creation of (text)books was originally patented. The patent holder would then be able to ensure that any textbooks whose contents disagreed with him do not get published simply by denying a licence to the publisher for that book.

      Fundamental concepts, like books, that have been around since the dawn of civilisation are generally not patentable. Prior art or something.

      • Fundamental concepts, like books, that have been around since the dawn of civilisation are generally not patentable. Prior art or something.

        So things like rounded corners, for example?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Don't worry. Just as all the "educational game-changers", this will not work. It may just leach some really needed money away from hiring good teachers, so its overall effect may be detrimental.

    • As an analogous situation, imagine if the creation of (text)books was originally patented. The patent holder would then be able to ensure that any textbooks whose contents disagreed with him do not get published simply by denying a licence to the publisher for that book.

      I really don't see how textbooks could be much more expensive or difficult to obtain than they already are.

  • Right... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by DivineKnight ( 3763507 ) on Sunday September 14, 2014 @11:50PM (#47905697)

    "Oculus Rift CEO Says Classrooms of the Future Will Be In VR Goggles"...and people will live out their lives in self-contained tubes.

    I swear, when some of these CEOs talk about new technologies for education, you can hear the line from The Hudsucker Proxy in the background ("You know...for kids!").

    "we can have relationships and communication that are just as good as the real classroom" -> *facepalms* Drop the Web 2.0 'Social Media' bullshit. "It's a social thing, where you communicate with other people, doing other social things, kind of like a party or something, but using our technology!" -> Someone please kill me, it's the same story every single time. Why not just promote the damn VR stuff for what it can do that RL (real life) can't do? Displaying stuff that can't fit into a classroom, like a tesseract. You have this great technology which can be used to push the boundary of what students are exposed to these days, and these jokers want to use it for a glorified chatroom. Gah!

  • I know a CEO has to say crap like that, but it's just so ... over the top. I know classrooms are the holy grail for corporations, because it's all about the kids after all and money should be no object to a quality education, but damn. I'm surprised he didn't launch into how VR technology could drastically reduce the spread of the severe respiratory disease that is currently sweeping through schools in some parts of the country. Why is this on /.? He needs to stick to where they will probably really hit

    • Porn won't be the jackpot, for the same reason it wasn't for video calling.

      You'd actually have to hire attractive people for your phone sex lines.

    • Haven't you seen the Lysol commercial promoting cleanliness in schools? http://www.lysol.com/our-missi... [lysol.com] and http://www.lysol.ca/en/mission... [lysol.ca] Two days ago there was another one can't remember what it was about kids learning about some commercial product in class room.

      Seems to be the new cool corporate thing to attach a corporate name into kids heads early from the start.

    • Even if VR really was the awesome teaching tool that the CEO claims it to be, it still doesn't solve the real issue: teaching teachers to use them. And I'm not talking about the basic "dur, how I turn on?" technical issues but helping teachers understand how to use these new tools in their curriculum. What tasks is VR appropriate for (and for which tasks it isn't). When and how do you use VR to help students learn? Seeing as how films and TV are still of dubious use in the classroom, I suspect that by the t

  • What an impediment to learning googles are.

  • Bad for developing brains (Score:4, Informative)

    by kheldan ( 1460303 ) on Monday September 15, 2014 @12:03AM (#47905777) Journal
    Wasn't there a news story some time ago that said research was done that shows that children a certain age or younger should not play 3D games because it screws up the development of their brain? Also mod Oculus Rift CEO down for being as biased as they come.
    • That news story was by the leading CEO of 2D games. Now you know how the world works...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mentil ( 1748130 )

      Nintendo took the legally safe option by recommending children under 7 not use the 3DS' 3d mode, although research wasn't conclusive that it could cause Lazy Eye. Palmer Luckey (CEO of Oculus) actually directly responded to a query about this. I seem to recall him saying that it could eventually be made safe for children. The 3DS uses an adjustable virtual inter-pupillary distance (IPD) which is most likely set different from your real IPD. In contrast, the Oculus Rift is calibrated to use your real IPD, an

  • Education? ... Yes! Why it's great for education! In fact, it's the future of the classroom! And don't forget, Oculus Rift is both a floor wax and a dessert topping! [yahoo.com]

    But seriously:

    And if we can make virtual reality every bit as good as real reality in terms of communications and the sense of shared presence with others, you can now educate people in virtual classrooms, you can now educate people with virtual objects, and we can all be in a classroom together [virtually], we can all be present, we can have re

  • VR is still pointless. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Seumas ( 6865 ) on Monday September 15, 2014 @12:29AM (#47905887)

    All the goggles are accomplishing is wrapping an image around your face. Until touch, movement, smell, and sound are also adequately reproduced, it's not virtual reality anymore than the Hard Drivin' arcade machine from the 90s was. And replication of those elements are not coming in our life time; likely won't come until we've figured out a way to trick the brain into doing the work for us.

    Also -- holy shit, the pink eye this is going to cause. Gross.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mentil ( 1748130 )

      There's been little point in developing those technologies thus far, though. Until VR software exists where the programmers intend to adopt technologies which maximize the immersion of the player, and players are in a mindset where they want their immersion to be maximized, it won't happen. Haptics and motion tech are reasonably far along, sound is nearly there, taste is pretty much there, but smell is going to be trouble with current tech though. According to many people who have used the Rift, it subjecti

  • That's just the intro to this book. As fiction, it was entertaining. As a possible actual reality? Not so much, thanks.

  • Distance Education (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Harlequin80 ( 1671040 ) on Monday September 15, 2014 @01:02AM (#47906001)

    This could be excellent for distance education. A virtual classroom for those people who simply cannot get there.

    Or in the situation where the teacher has the best view and you and everyone to see that. Imagine being able to watch, from the exact perspective, in stereoscopic a master surgeon at work.

    • Bandwidth sucks with Distance Education. Typically latency sucks as well. If that's taken into account and you can pre-download bits of a virtual Smithsonian, then that's useful, but for a lot of other things close to realtime voice and crappy, but timely video gives the kids the answers now and lets interaction happen pretty close to immediately.
      I'm not dismissing it out of hand. I was really pumped on the idea after looking at molecular interactions using 3D goggles at the Hitachi pavilion at Expo88 (i

      • Agreed bandwidth will be a major problem for the school of the air type kids. But if we do see some of those smaller towns connected with better internet then maybe it becomes feasible for some of them.

        Actually though I was thinking more for tertiary education than primary and secondary. For example if you want to study a Masters in Petroleum Engineering the number of universities that offer that course is relatively small.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dbIII ( 701233 )

          Actually though I was thinking more for tertiary education than primary and secondary.

          Good point - virtual models of things that you can manipulate could really help with understanding. I'm not so sure about watching from the POV of a surgeon.

    • Why not just sit in front of a 50" tv and get just as good experience with out somethings stuck on your head?

      • Because, as I understand it, the Oculus is able to track your head movement which means your perspective can change. If all you are watching it a teacher on the screen then absolutely use a tv. But if you have a 3d mapped model the ability to naturally shift your head to change perspective would, I believe, be very useful.

  • infinite budget cuts (Score:3)

    by globaljustin ( 574257 ) on Monday September 15, 2014 @01:44AM (#47906137) Journal

    technology will always just be a tool for a human teacher

    the notion that these would be cost effective is absolutely ridiculous...maybe one day but not now

    every dollar spent on these is wasted...they are not intrisically value added...like seeing a moving w/ 3D glasses on vs the regular film

    sure there are probably a million "innovative" ideas for things like a virtual walk through of [insert historical thing you think is important]

    if Occulus wants to donate them, great...but if they have lobbyists going around selling school districts on actually **using tax dollars to buy these for schools**...that's ridiculous in this era of infinite "budget cuts"

  • Oculus Rift CEO Says Classrooms of the Future Will Be In VR Goggles

    Says, hopes, whatever.

  • This guy hasn't even shipped a product.

    Considering the failure of 3D TV and 3D movies, 3D headsets have to be viewed as an iffy business proposition. The Oculus Rift may turn out to be the Segway of display devices.

  • Its pretty old hat to say every new media will revolutionize education: phograph, movies, radio, mail order, telvision, internet .... Good old human teacher contact is still major factor after 140 years.
  • No one will ever have to get a concussion in gym again! But the school nurse will need to be a chiropractor.

  • Coming up later, an interview with the barber who says short hair is the latest greatest thing.

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