Montclair State University - Carnegie Committee

Virtual Reality

Jack Baldwin LeClair MA, EdS, JD

When most of us think of virtual reality these days we think of the Matrix, TRON, and a few other choice cinematic
representations of interactive space. The truth is closer than we think. Ever since MUDS, and MOOS of the early text days of communal real time electronic interaction, the idea of interaction online for entertainment, socializing, and the exchange of ideas has captured our imaginations. A MUD is a text-based multi-user virtual reality environment which means "Multi-User Dungeon," MOOs (Mud, Object Oriented) provide a highly flexible programming language that allows users to build their own additions to the landscape, create rooms, and programming objects (anything from simple furniture to talking pets, or talking furniture...), as well as interacting with other players. We have a seemingly infinite ability to adapt to any medium of communication in search of freedom of expression. Interaction has simply evolved from text to two dimensional pictures and perhaps to three dimensional video in the future.

Of course, virtual reality has existed in the form of simulations from the earliest days of representational computing. Once representations of real space and time could be projected on video screens in stable non-flickering forms that did not trigger siezures and cause blinding headaches, the value of an environment that could represent a physical world without the discomfort of material damage became apparent. Flight simulators and equipment trainers were developed by the military, NASA, and private aviation to train pilots and operators without the inconvenience and expense of crashing mulit-million dollar aircraft and killing valuable personnel. In recent years NASA has created or provided educational simulations at their Glenn Research Center for mathematics, rocketry, and aerodynamics. Want to see the phases of the moon on any day for three centuries? Click here.

We take for granted that today we can visit the Louvre to see a digitized Mona Lisa or stop by the Smithsonian to see a living fossil, the coelecanth, because they appear as two dimensional representations on our computer screens and we have become accustomed to video displays. Yet, such sites are more than two dimensional virtual realities. They are visual and textual and provide an intellectual multi-dimensional tour. To be sure, a virtual visit to the Louvre or the Smithsonian have neither the ambience of a leisurely stroll down the Champs-Elysées nibbling on petit pan du chocolat nor the pleasure of standing beneath the grandeur of gigantic columns of granite and marble facades in our nation's capital. Nonetheless, they provide us with a means to travel to far off places and explore knowledge and aesthetic work. accumulated over centuries. As Emily Dickinson wrote:

THERE is no frigate like a book
To take us lands away,
Nor any coursers like a page
Of prancing poetry.
This traverse may the poorest take
Without oppress of toll;
How frugal is the chariot
That bears a human soul!

If a book is metaphorically a frigate than the Internet must be much like space travel, transcending the confining physical reality that separates humanity from a world of knowledge.

There are more provocative versions of virtual reality which have been commercially developed. Active Worlds is a
community of hundreds of thousands of users who chat and build 3D virtual reality environments in millions of square kilometers of virtual territory. Virtual Worlds is a network of synthetic worlds and digital life exploring the science of complexity. Regardless of the sophistication of the website, the pedagogical purpose determines the success of the endeavor.

Your own virtual travels in education and interaction can be of your own creation or borrowed from generous citizens of the Internet. The issue for us as educators is how we determine we have enhanced the educational experience. Can you design a model through self-reflection about our pedagogy that permits measurement or estimate of effectiveness against your own standard? A simple survey may suffice or you can construct a more formal design or a more creative one.

For instance, students can be shown slides projected on a screen in a classroom. It is an established didactic practice to show students pictures. Yet, static projection ignores the possibilities inherent in a heuristic journey through related space. A visit to a museum to see a painting may lead to serendipitous experiences which, if examined, may yield a richer understanding of the culture that produced the art. Consider the simple question: "What, if anything can you deduce from the culture that produced the statue or painting?" If you receive a perspicacious response and one of your goals was to enrich student understanding of the relationship of culture or literature to art, you have, to some extent, measured the achievement of your goal.