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from the boys-have-a-Wheatley,-girls-have-a-Cortana dept.
Submitted via IRC for AndyTheAbsurd
Using VR, students can learn about the cells in the human body while “travelling” into the bloodstream, or “explore” the degree of plastic pollution in the oceans. They can also conduct complicated experiments using expensive lab-equipment and dangerous chemicals, just by putting on a pair of VR-goggles that immediately offers very realistic and lively experiences.
[...] But the rapid growth of VR-technology in teaching is a new and relatively un-tested field, and at the University of Copenhagen Associate Professor in Psychology Guido Makransky investigates how, why, and in what settings VR-learning provides an advantage over traditional methods and media, so society´s investments in VR-technology can be used in the most beneficial way.
[...] In a study with 66 7th and 8th -grade students (half boys, half girls) at a Danish science talent school, Makransky and colleagues found that the girls learned most in the VR-simulations, when the VR-teacher there was a young, female researcher named Marie, whereas the boys learned more, while being instructed by a flying robot in the form of a drone.
Not mentioned in the article: What other "teacher" figures were tested. Did they try male teachers? Anthropomorphic rabbits? Disembodied voices?
A Gender Matching Effect in Learning with Pedagogical Agents in an Immersive Virtual Reality Science Simulation DOI: 10.1111/jcal.12335
Source: https://news.ku.dk/all_news/2019/virtual-reality-research/
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 11 2019, @05:59AM (4 children)
So, VR not living up to the overblown expectations that formerly teenaged boys hoped it would? Well, immediately we go to "education"! Yeah, that's the ticket! We can teach biology with the Magic School Bus on Acid, just like Ken Kesey and Wavy Gravy [wikipedia.org] did back in the day! Will not someone think of the children? Is this yet another failing tech, like Apple or Microsoft, that attempts to insert itself into children by focusing on education and controlling mind-space? The first one is free! But, if the drugged out Hippies of the Sixties taught us anything, they taught us There ain't no such thing as a free lunch [wikipedia.org], which strangely enough, relates to one of the current sci-fi lit picks on SoylentNews. What are the odds? And perhaps, the odds are the true normies, and the alt-right is just the old straights? Far out, persons!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by qzm on Friday January 11 2019, @06:32AM (3 children)
Well, that ACC rant was a big... random, but unforutnately somewhat on target.
Computer based learning has proven itself very solidly to be a very poor performer (lack of material depth, poor retention, slow rates of learning). Its only 'upside' seems to be WAY lower work required for the teachers.. I wonder why its so popular.
VR learning? I would only imagine it would dumb things down another few notches, as it gets much harder to create the virtual 'worlds' to represent actual facts, so everything will just become a nice happy cartoon.
It is truly sad that there is so little critical thinking and results based process evolution in teaching these days - in fact it seems almost the opposite.
Not to mention the gender gap in teachers, which administrators are actively working to INCREASE at a fast rate.
Obviously our children are worth very little to us these days. Sad really.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 11 2019, @06:53AM (1 child)
The answer is clear. We must double down on porn.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 11 2019, @11:01AM
They have that covered. They do. They really do.
Foursomes too. And more! much much more
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 11 2019, @07:30AM
Like Camelot, it is only a model.
signed,
ACC Ranter