Could VR Field Trips Replace the Real Thing? (theindychannel.com) 96
turkeydance shares a report from RTV6, which cites a new editorial in the journal Science that explores the question, "Could VR field trips replace the real thing?" Virtual field trips have been around for a while, but they used to be pretty boring: some photos, some text -- basically a Wikipedia entry. But they've come a long way. Nearpod and Google Expeditions let students immerse themselves in places they couldn't normally visit, like Antarctica or even Mars. These virtual field trips are safer and easier to organize than real outings, and they might soon be cheaper, too. Douglas McCauley, assistant professor of ecology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, says traditional field trips have already declined under budget constraints, so schools might be tempted to simply make a switch. McCauley says he's excited about the possibilities of VR. Taking students back to prehistoric times or forward to witness the results of climate change could be a powerful teaching tool.
Fuck no (Score:1)
By definition.
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Fuck yes. By definition.
Let's see... boring, tedious, about as educational as watching the wall paint dry... if they now somehow first add a bus ride that makes you throw up, they're pretty much already on par with a real field trip.
And that should be easy in VR, most VR games already pull that off without even trying.
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If it's for big and well known things, fuck yes indeed .... completely ruining the experience
- most of those museums/sights/... are completely overrun by tourist, tourist shops,
- and even if you get a nice look at it, you can't stand there for a few minutes enjoying it since there are hundreds of people waiting behind you...
- and just the ecological sense of going somewhere for seeing something like that etc...
- and indeed, all the practical shit that comes along with it
give me a decent virtual tour of any
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now if it's for a nice relaxing vacation on some remote place just enjoying the fresh air and sitting in a tent, i doubt VR will replace that XD.
Well, sitting on a virtual beach, putting your feet into the water and letting the waves lap at them while actually you sit on your couch with your feet in a footbath... sure, it ain't the same but it's something you can have right here, right now, for cheap and whenever you feel like it.
SING IT WITH ME!!! (Score:2)
putting your feet into the water and letting the waves lap at them
"Goldfish shoals, nibbling at my toes!
Fun, fun, fun, in the sun, sun, sun..."
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You all do realize that for some of the poorer kids, this would basically be a gigantic middle finger to them, right? I had some classmates when I was at the school mostly pulling from one of the local Projects who could be gotten farther than they'd ever have been in their life just by tossing them on a cross-town bus.
This definitely did make field trips with them sometimes have the additional entertainment of getting to see them realize that the city was a lot more diverse than they'd thought--but if mos
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Actually not exactly, VR can't replace all field trips. If the sole purpose of a field trip is to see the place and nothing else, then VR may be used to replace the field trip. However, some types of field trips need more than just seeing because you need to use other senses in the field trip, e.g. geology, climatology, etc. In other words, some field trips can be replaced, but some others can't.
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We did Geology field trips at our school. It's funny how our parents favorite picnic spots happened to be the best examples of specific geological features; beaches, granite cliffs, sandstone hills. To capture everything from the individual grains of quartz in granite would required HD video. To capture the stalactites and stalagmites in a cave would really require 360 degree video. Nothing would really replace of walking along the coastline of beach cliffs, seeing and hearing the waves on one side, feeling
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VR = scam. (Score:1)
Never falling for that bullshit again. What a waste of money and time my HTC Vive turned out to be. Never again.
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VR = Vomit Reality
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Never falling for that bullshit again. What a waste of money and time my HTC Vive turned out to be. Never again.
You are aware of the upcoming VR port of Fallout 4? Or, maybe you aren't into gaming. In which case, yeah, desktop VR is a bit like when Blu-Ray players came out. The hardware is there, but little in the way of content.
FPS Gaming seems to have the most buzz for VR content. Though, I wouldn't be surprised if we see some MMOs adopting it.
My buddy has the Occulous Rift and it works quite well. I'm thinking, though, that it's probably better to wait for Gen2 hardware. The theory being that they will have
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Why not both? (Score:2)
There's no reason to "replace" anything. VR can be an immensely powerful learning tool. Kids can do a guided tour, then be left to their own devices to explore things that weren't covered, without fear of losing anyone. I say just start organizing three times as many fields trips, but make all the extra ones virtual.
However, real world experience in certain places is also important. Young students should visit a real fire station and see and talk with the real people working. Middle school and high school
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then be left to their own devices
Heh!
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They can't, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Field trips haven't just declined, they've been decimated. VR would be an improvement over nothing. VR that allows group participation (similar to conference type VR) with the teacher in the VR would be very useful.
But, it would be better to look at this as something new that opens up doors that field trips never could. VR can take you anywhere from inside a molecule or cell to visiting anyplace on Earth at any time in history to walking on the moon. It's a potential boon to the learners that have to see things, walk around them, etc.
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Right. Why limit yourself to only seeing what you can in person? And that's not just a matter of location, but scale and interactivity, too. Why go to a planetarium, when you can go to the stars? Zoom out and see the whole solar system, zoom in and watch nuclear fusion in the core of the sun.
Of course field trips ought to be a niche use. I'd love it at home, to be able to explore all kinds of things. Other cities and countries, national parks, outer space, the inner workings of machinery, you name it. Sure,
Short answer: (Score:5, Insightful)
no. Add to them, ok. Replace them? Only for people that don't care.
*might* be cheaper? (Score:5, Insightful)
places they couldn't normally visit, like Antarctica or even Mars. These virtual field trips are safer and easier to organize than real outings, and they might soon be cheaper, too
The guy claims that the reason (OK, one reason) for the decline in field trips is budgetary. Then the article tells us that VR trips might be cheaper?
Well if they only "might" be cheaper (though I would expect them to be a dam' sight cheaper than a trip to Mars - or Antarctica) then that doesn't sound like they are addressing the issue claimed.
However, the real reason field trips have declined is simply because of all the litigious parents and liabilities that schools incur, need to insure against and have to account for. Trips are simply not worth the hassle of organising and dealing with the fallout.
Though I expect there are already parents gearing up to sue the arse of schools and teachers for the "stress" of making their little darlings wear a VR helmet - or the cost of their "destroyed" hair-do.
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If “cheaper” is the real issue... Viewmaster has been around for 80 years.
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They'll help test scores very much if they either are to help you understand the material better--some subjects have to be seen, at least the first time, because that's what lets you get a sense of what the words to describe them actually mean--or are set up as an explicit reward for hitting milestones on time.
The insurance, though, is definitely a significant issue, especially in school systems where you've got a decent chunk of the population who would consider insurance fraud a 'victimless' crime & i
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A lot of kids took Physics 2 ( AP Physics now? ) because it was well known that everyone who managed to get at least a C got to go on the field trip to Six Flags (an amusement park with rollercoasters, aka physics applied to entertainment) toward the end of the year. Sure, you could have skipped school and gone by yourself, you didn't NEED the class to go, but it would be hard to assemble a group of your good friends to all skip the same day... And also, it was somehow cooler that it was school-sanctioned a
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Yes but they never made a view master box factory edition.
Re: *might* be cheaper? (Score:1)
The best option is to get rid of the risk assessments, introducing more dangerous field trips to fun destinations like Raqqa and go for a "(much) fewer but (much) stronger" graduates strategy.
Simpsons Did It (Score:5, Funny)
"You'll go where I go, defile what I defile, eat who I eat"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1_bp8YKUPU/ [youtube.com]
If you're talking about Antarctica or Mars... (Score:4, Insightful)
the question is the same as "Could VR Field Trips be better than not doing it at all?" because there's no way they're going there in any way otherwise.
But seriously, why would anyone want a VR "woods simulator" instead of taking them to the woods, for example?
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TBE?
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But seriously, why would anyone want a VR "woods simulator" instead of taking them to the woods, for example?
Fewer cases of Lyme's?
(j/k; I agree with you)
Just Because You See the Bathroom with the VR (Score:4, Funny)
Doesn't mean you're actually there. Please pull your pants back up and stop looking like you're about to do it in my living room.
WTF??!? ... It's called "Field Trip" for a reason. (Score:4, Insightful)
VR will replace the screen for space and mecha games. In short, it will replace where it makes the experience *more* real, not less.
So, no, VR is not a replacement for field trips and never will be.
Captain Obvious was glad to help.
Sure it can (Score:4, Insightful)
then it can replace real field trips. In its current state, it's just a slightly better version of a 3D movie.
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I'm not sure you'd need all of that for VR to be useful, although I'd agree that we're still no where near enough to be "good enough" for anything like a replacement of the real thing.
However, if it's a way to take a trip inside a human body, or walk about on Mars or whatever, then it's currently *better* than the real thing, in so much as you'll never do the real thing. One could also argue that (say) visiting Easter Island is "better" than going there because the environmental impact of going there is pre
Wouldn't hold my breath (Score:3)
In theory, sure, you could make detailed 3D scans of everything and do it all in VR. But for that to happen, somebody must first put in the effort to create those virtual 3D tours as well as get the permission to produce them to begin with. Neither of which are easy. Museums like to keep their things under lock, they want the visitors to come and spend money there, not make themselves obsolete by having some amazing digital reproduction. Producing those 3D scans, that are detailed enough to replace a real visit, would also need a lot of money and technology.
People have been making those same claims about revolutionizing teaching with every new technology. They did it with the radio, the TV, they did it with the multimedia CD-ROMs, with the Internet and so on. It never had all that much impact. If you really want to figure out how stuff works, you still need to go to a library and get a book. It's not that new technology couldn't do it better, but simply the result of there not being a viable business model to produce that kind of content on a scale that could impact teaching at large. People protecting their already established business models doesn't help either.
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You probably would have the museums charging for access to the scans, especially for off-site access. Preservation costs money to do, and is an ongoing cost. You're also not going to get some types of museums doable by VR until it's Holodeck-level realism--indistinguishable from real life, all senses reproduced--because of the nature of the museum. What we've got currently for VR is a very fancy 3D movie.
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No, but it's more likely to happen...
Can VR Replace $thing? (Score:2)
Answer: never completely. Part of the reason people go places isn't just to use their senses to experience the environment, but also to experience tangentially-related things. For example, going to Mount Rushmore is more of a "to say you've done it and cross it off your bucket list" thing; if you saw it in VR, could you really say "I've been there"? You can't bring back souvenirs, and there'll be limits to the area's size and how you can interact with it (scooping up sand, taking a swim, etc.)
Good luck simu
You ARE on such a field trip right now! (Score:1)
It's called the "Early 21st Century History" course, so you can see for yourself how our ancestors ruined the planet and started WW3.
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Magic School Bus?! (Score:2)
Anyone?!?!
How? (Score:2)
How would VR trips be cheaper than a normal field trip, when a single VR headset is 2-3x the price (to a district) of renting a school bus?
Why bring climate change into it? (Score:2)
It just seems sleazy considering that there is a political component to it. Like he wants to force kids to share his fears about a possible future.
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Heck yes (Score:2)
Ready Player One? (Score:2)
This brings us one step closer to the world of "Ready Player One". On the plus side, if we end up in that big of an energy crisis, we'll already have this technology available before it gets to the point where no one but the top 1% can afford to travel anywhere. Maybe we could look at figuring out the best way to stack trailers on top of each other next.
At some point (Score:2)
simpsons did it! (Score:2)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Not replace, supplement (Score:1)
Rekall - For The Memory Of a Lifetime (Score:2)
Why bother with choppy and mass produced VR when you can go to Rekall and get a memory of your vacation? Cheaper, safer, and better than the real thing!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Just keep everyone indoors all the time (Score:2)
Great idea! (Score:2)
VR homeentertaining (Score:2)
I guess I thee the biggest future for VR in home entertaining systems. ...
Imagine you have a sports arena projected around you, are via internet connected with your friends or family, who appear inside of your VR simulation and you in theirs.
You could define where you sit in the stadium and have part of the real audience for atmosphere reasons be projected into your simulation, probabaly with changed faces
Greaaaaat... (Score:2)
These virtual field trips are safer and easier to organize than real outings...
Sure! By all means let's insulate kids even more from the natural world, the realities of travel, the navigation of strange places, the social and psychological challenges of membership in large unruly groups, and the opportunity for casual exercise. Let's extend our micromanagement of their lives even farther, make their learning more targeted, and further decrease their independence and autonomy by ensuring that they acquire only approved knowledge in the approved fashion.
Fuck all that! Let kids get dirty
Promises and disappointments (Score:1)
Lord Dorwin, Chancellor of the Galactic Empire (Score:2)
... and the analysis afterwards by Salvor Hardin
Hardin continued: "It isn't just you. It's the whole Galaxy. Pirenne heard Lord Dorwin's idea of scientific research. Lord Dorwin thought the way to be a good archaeologist was to read all the books on the subject – written by men who were dead for centuries. He thought that the way to solve archaeological puzzles was to weigh the opposing authorities. And Pirenne listened and