Integrating Virtual Reality into Technology Education Labs: Virtual Reality Provides a Means to Deliver Standards-Based Curriculum to Today's Technologically Savvy Students

Abstract

Desktop Virtual Reality (Ausburn & Ausburn, 2004) is an instructional tool that can be used to deliver standards-based instruction (International Education Association, 2000/2002) while tapping students' interests. Although there are no plug-and-play virtual-reality (VR) solutions currently available to the K-12 teacher, there are easy ways to teach concepts employing VR (interactive, three-dimensional, stereographic computer images). Experimenting with hardware and software can be time-consuming for the K-12 teacher. This article discusses the hardware, software, resources, and concepts needed to integrate VR into a classroom with a minimal investment of resources. Today's students are technologically savvy. They use computers to play video games, post web pages, publish weblogs, and chat online. Seventy percent of children in the U.S. between ages 3 and 17 have access to computers (Child Trends 2003; DeBell and Chapman, 2003). Seventy percent of today's college students play video games (Riegle, 2004). technologies used to produce video games are closely associated with desktop virtual reality (Ausburn & Ausburn, 2004). Computer-assisted drafting programs (CAD) and graphics programs are used to generate and animate three-dimensional (3D) computer models. Technologies used to create three-dimensional models for video games are also used to create virtual-reality models. Video gaming enthusiasts don helmets or goggles that have small computer monitors mounted in them. Similar head-mounted displays (HMDs) are used in virtual-reality activities. Input devices, such as mice, triggers, or thumb sticks, allow gamers to interact with a video game. These input devices can also be used in VR. Virtual-reality technologies tap students' motivation to use computers while delivering standards-based curriculum. Standards-based Instruction Virtual reality, HMDs, and trackers can be easily and inexpensively integrated into the education laboratory to address ITEA's Standards for Technological Literacy: Content for the Study of (STL) (2000/2002). Virtual reality, like video games, integrates software and hardware residing on a local computer or network into a communication system. Studying this communication system directly addresses students' understanding of The Nature of Technology (STL Standards 1, 2, and 3). Students generating 3D computer models (STL Standard 11) used in virtual reality come to understand the design process (STL Standards 8 and 9) while using, troubleshooting, and maintaining a technological system (STL Standard 11). Exposure to desktop virtual reality introduces students to technologies used in movie animation, electronic gaming (Novak, 2005), chemistry (Illman, 1994), surgery, flight simulation (Shulman, 1999), marketing, engineering, military training, and robotics (Briggs, 1996; Wong & Wong, 1996). The role of society in the development and use of technology (STL Standard 6) can be explored within the context of these related technologies. Desktop Virtual Reality System Setup Software Software applications drive the selection of computer hardware and the associated peripherals in any VR system. Alice, a freeware computer program from Carnegie-Mellon University, available for download from www.alice.org, may be used as the starting point for desktop VR. Alice integrates into graphics and web-design classrooms easily since computer workstations running modern CAD and graphics packages will easily run Alice. Alice's interface, shown in Figure 1, is used as the starting point for a first-time introduction to virtual reality for the following reasons: * Three-dimensional objects are built and ready for animation. * Alice is free from Carnegie-Mellon University and is regularly updated. * Programming skills needed to implement higher-level VR systems are introduced while students create their own animated environments. …