Sources:
https://www.thehindu.com/education/immersive-education/article24298675.ece
https://www.franchiseindia.com/education/Virtual-Reality-brings-reality-of-education-alive.9834
Model Answer:
VR (VIRTUAL REALITY) is a term that describes computer-simulated environments which mimic real physical presences in real world or outside. This artificial environment is created with software and presented to the user in a way that the user accepts it as a real environment. Virtual realities artificially create sensory experiences, which can include sight, touch, sound, and smell (primarily sight and sound).
Technology Vision Document 2035-authored by TIFAC (Technology, Information, Forecasting and Assessment Council) dedicated to late Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam is a vision of where our country and its citizens should be in 2035 and role of technology in it. It focuses on 12 Sectoral Technology roadmaps: education, medical sciences and healthcare, food & agriculture, water, etc. and virtual reality can play a major role in improving these sectors.
Potential in transforming education
Experiencing “Real” Life: Students can get some idea of what life was like in ancient Rome through descriptive passages in a textbook, but this just doesn’t seem real to them. You could show them a video about the life of Syrian refugees, but it just won’t be the same as experiencing it.
More Empathy: The bubonic plague. The Holocaust. The rigorous lives of the early American pioneers. We want our students to learn more than mundane facts and dates about these events. We want them to develop the capacity to feel what others feel and to empathize. Such empathy gives them a deeper and wiser perspective on events in the world today, and they cannot get this simply by reading a textbook or writing an essay.
Help for Struggling Students: Traditionally, it has always been challenging to deliver a quality educational experience to students with special needs. With VR, such students have a way to easily access deep learning regardless of their developmental or cognitive challenges. Virtual Reality levels the playing field, giving the same learning opportunities to all.
Imparting More Relevance in Traditional Learning Experiences: VR experiences can inform and enhance more traditional learning activities. A student who needs to write an essay about a Shakespearean play will gain a deeper perspective by experiencing the play virtually. If your class is learning a language by corresponding with a class from another country, this exchange can be more meaningful after witnessing life in the target culture first-hand.
Other Application of VR
HEALTHCARE
- Psychological therapy – treating patients in a safe zone where they can experience situations they fear and get over it.
- memory therapy.
- implant and surgical training to surgeons
- speech training and personality development in people who are crowd phobic
AUTOMOTIVE
- Experiencing own automobiles help companies in improving their product specifications
- Campaign to educate teenagers and parents about distracted driving. (by Toyota)
SOCIAL
- Understanding crime situations by jury.
- VR chair traveller / virtual tourism
- Education and training for improved HR productivity
- Sensitising people for social issues as world without girls or deserted future
Apart from the visual, it can facilitate the touch sensations also. The application of Virtual reality is enormous and the advancing science day by day is making peoples’ life easier.
