Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality

Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality are ways to transport the user into an alternate reality! Virtual Reality can help extend knowledge and learning in an engaging way by immersing students to a world where they can visit other places in virtual trips or manipulate various objects to see from multiple positions (American College of Education [ACE], 2020a, p. 2). The BEST example of Virtual Reality is the movie Ready Player One (Spielberg, 2018). The movie introduces how virtual reality is in the future and how the characters are immersed in the virtual reality. According to ACE (2020a), Virtual Reality is beneficial for students to have better academic performance (p. 2). ACE (2020a) also quotes Heather et al. (2019) that Virtual Reality also leads to a “higher student satisfaction in the learning experience” (p. 2).

Video from Warner Bros Pictures (2017, Dec 10). Ready Player One Official Trailer [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSp1dM2Vj48

With virtual reality being an immersive environment, augmented reality is the real environment with superimposed elements from a virtual system (ACE, 2020b, p. 1). ACE (2020b) gives a fantastic example of Pokemon Go being an augmented reality game (p. 1). The game has players using their camera on their smartphone with virtual animation superimposed over it in the real world. Augmented reality takes information about the real world and collects it from the user’s device. The information is then sent through the game or application to the central computer before the central gaming computer sends information to be superimposed on the user’s device (ACE, 2020b, p. 1).

Video from Pokemon Go (2022, Aug 23). Gift Pokémon GO Fest 2022: Finale tickets for just US $5.00! [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smTxGuxTf4E

References

American College of Education. (2020a). Module 7: Virtual reality Part 1 transcript: Virtual reality [Transcript]. American College of Education. https://ace.instructure.com/courses/1825737/modules/items/32261275

American College of Education. (2020b). Module 7: Virtual environments for education Part 2 transcript: Augmented reality [Transcript]. American College of Education. https://ace.instructure.com/courses/1825737/modules/items/32261275

Pokemon Go (2022, Aug 23). Gift Pokémon GO Fest 2022: Finale tickets for just US $5.00! [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smTxGuxTf4E

Warner Bros Pictures (2017, Dec 10). Ready Player One Official Trailer [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSp1dM2Vj48