The Future of Technology
Augmented reality and virtual reality technologies have grown to become more and more innovative and popular over the years. Through the development of these technologies, different industries and disciplines have been discovering ways to implement it into their practices. In particular, one example of such is education. As mentioned in the content for this week, teachers and educators have been trying to find ways to incorporate virtual reality into course curriculum in order to make learning content more applicable and help students learn abstract concepts in a more tangible way. While there is not too much research relating to how VR technology affects learning, I personally think that there could be a lot of potential for boosting engagement in students. This could be particularly helpful for catering to the different learning styles of different students, as some people are more visual learners while others are more auditory learners.
Another area where virtual reality is being used is for health. One such example is Wellness VR, which is a virtual reality platform used to help with promoting wellbeing in older individuals through virtual natural environments and guided meditation. This has helped those in senior care cope with loneliness and reduce pain, as well as improve mood and lessen feelings of anxiety. I thought that this was an interesting and innovative way to use virtual reality technology to promote health, particularly the wellbeing of older individuals. This has always been an interesting idea to me as I have seen hospitals using VR headsets as a form of treatment for kids in recovery and also learning about it in psychology classes about how VR can be used as a form of exposure therapy for those with PTSD or specific phobias. Furthermore, this can be such an accessible form of treatment for many as it requires just a smartphone and a virtual reality headset.
I think virtual reality and augmented reality technologies will definitely continue to develop in the future, especially in terms of content. Right now, there is still a lot of exploration of the potential of virtual reality but once it becomes a more familiar technology there could be many different uses for it. So it definitely has potential as a tool for learning. Additionally, education is slowly be changed by technology regardless so VR will undoubtedly be another platform for learning at some point. I can imagine VR technologies being used for STEM courses, where more hands-on-learning may be required (such as chemistry or biology). But at the same time, virtual reality is still not reality so there will be a gap in knowledge and what can actually be applied in real life.