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Application and Development of virtual reality technology in Education - Dr. Zhang Zhu

2021-11-11

Abstract: With the development of computer technology, virtual reality is opening its mysterious veil, gradually into our life. The combination of virtual reality and education will set off a subversive innovation storm in the field of teaching. Starting from the concept and application field of VR technology, this paper discusses the development status of VR education, excavates the advantages and challenges of VR education mode compared with traditional teaching mode, and gives further suggestions for the development of VR education.


Key words: teaching mode VR education optimization


1. Application background of virtual reality technology in education


With the rapid development of science and technology, from the original blackboard, chalk to the present multimedia teaching, the way of education is constantly improving and progress, gradually diversified. However, such teaching method still cannot get rid of the teacher-centered mode, and there are phenomena such as students' low learning enthusiasm and low learning efficiency. The application of VR technology provides new possibilities to remedy these defects. By VR technology can build an immersive, imaginative and interactive 3 d virtual real scene, and the dynamic interaction of the perception of object in the scene, students can learn by VR scene intuitively feel to the content of the experiment operation, personally will quickly learned knowledge into practice, the transition of knowledge to ability, Better understand and control what you are learning. The application of VR technology into teaching practice is conducive to giving full play to the initiative and creativity of students through deeper experiential teaching, better reflecting the cognitive role of students, and bringing the learning effect and efficiency to a new level [1].


The application of virtual reality technology in the field of education


2.1 3D object display


In the teaching of mathematics, chemistry, biology and physics, it is often necessary to provide students with some physical models to help them understand more abstract concepts. Virtual reality can build the same model as the real object required by classroom teaching through corresponding modeling software. Compared with the traditional model, its interaction is stronger. For example, with Z-space, students can disassemble, move and rotate cell models at will and observe them from various angles, thus deepening their understanding of THREE-DIMENSIONAL objects and laying a foundation for subsequent learning.


2.2 Skill training


Skill training requires learners to apply the knowledge they have learned to action practice and internalize the knowledge through operation. Virtual reality enables students to train many skills in the virtual world that are difficult to carry out in the real world. For example, sports skills, medical surgery, physical and chemical experiments, etc., VR can overcome uncontrollable factors such as high cost, venue, weather and so on. The high immersion performance of virtual reality makes learners more focused, less susceptible to external interference, can avoid the danger brought by some skills training, and the retention time of acquired skills is relatively long.


2.3 Virtual scene construction


In subject teaching, teaching is often carried out by creating teaching situations, but the teacher's explanation is often quite different from the learner's understanding. By using VR to restore these scenes, learners can not only see and hear, but also experience them themselves. For example, virtual reality can enable learners to personally experience the scene of "Heinz stealing drugs" and put themselves in Heinz's shoes to experience his dilemma and entanglement. Such experience can better drive learners' emotional participation, which is of great help to the development of learners' empathy and sociality.


2.4 Reenact historical events and scenes


History is an established fact. Virtual reality can be used to reproduce the historical events involved in many subjects in discipline teaching to help students re-participate in historical events. Historical scenes reproduced by VR have strong situational characteristics, and can even interact with some characters and things, so that learners can participate in historical events, personally feel the depth of historical civilization, and improve the learning effect. For example, HTC VIVE uses virtual reality to simulate the Apollo 11 moon landing. As long as you wear a VR headset, you can become Armstrong and experience every detail of the moon landing, and all the process is controlled by the learner.


2.5 Virtual simulation campus


According to the viewpoint of Wang Lirong, there are two main forms of virtual simulation campus, that is, physical campus "virtualization" and virtual campus "reality". The former refers to virtualize some functions and facilities of the physical campus and integrate them into the virtual campus based on the relevant principles of educational informatization, so that learners can freely acquire and learn in the virtual campus. The latter means that the simulation campus can meet some needs of learners that are difficult to achieve in the physical campus, such as intelligent book recommendation for learners through the use of personal library habits. As early as 2003, the "Second Life" project was carried out by colleges and universities. Many foreign universities not only set up virtual campuses in Second Life, but also tried to set up courses.


2.6 Special Education


Special children are unwilling to communicate with others, suspicious, sensitive and other characteristics, teaching needs to break their psychological line of defense, create interesting learning scenes. Virtual reality can fully mobilize most of people's senses, create a targeted learning situation, and eliminate the problems of safety and timeliness in real teaching. At present, VR is applied in many countries in physical rehabilitation of children with physical disabilities, visual rehabilitation of children with visual impairment, language training of children with hearing impairment, adhd and autism correction.


2.7 Digital education publishing


The organic combination of digital publishing technology and VR technology has transformed the educational publishing focusing on audience demand into paying more attention to user experience and content quality. A vocational education institution has made use of 3d animation, automatic demonstration and other virtual reality technologies in teaching materials of mechanical, automotive and electronic majors to enable learners to quickly and proficiently master vocational skills [2].


3. Challenges facing VR education mode


3.1 Technical Aspects


First, the cost of hardware equipment is high. At present, VR equipment used in VR education market is mainly used by foreign brands, as well as domestic equipment manufacturers such as Dapeng and 3Glasses. The device's resolution and rendering capabilities all limit the experience of VR content. VR enterprises need to ensure excellent user experience, which means they have to bear high hardware investment costs.


Second, health. Studies have shown that long-term use of virtual reality headsets can cause a range of health problems, including motion sickness, fatigue and nausea. This will greatly affect users' experience of VR teaching content, which is not conducive to the popularization of VR education.


Third, the technical threshold of educational resource design and development is high. Whether VR content production can really solve the pain point of education users is the biggest problem VR education companies should consider. Although VR companies have professional design and development teams, if VR is to be applied in teaching practice for a long time and become a regular reality, how VR technicians grasp the actual teaching needs of front-line teachers and perfect the needs into products is the core problem of VR educational content production. However, it is difficult for teachers on the demand side to design and develop appropriate virtual education resources as traditional courseware.

3.2 Teaching


One is cognitive load challenge. The rich and varied scenes of VR virtual world will make it difficult for students to focus on learning behaviors. In addition, in order to focus on immersive experience and improve students' enthusiasm for class, VR adopts multiple information transmission, such as text, video, sound and picture, which is very easy to increase the cognitive load of students' memory in unit time, bringing negative teaching effect.


Second, VR teaching monitoring and achievement evaluation. In traditional teaching, teachers can usually judge students' behavior patterns and habits based on long-term experience, and choose appropriate teaching methods and teaching sessions for students according to their learning achievements at different stages. However, virtual learning environment adds difficulty to the monitoring of teaching process. It is difficult for teachers to observe the behavior expression of students in virtual environment, and they cannot timely follow up the learning situation of students and provide timely intervention and guidance [3].


4 conclusion


VR technology has brought more advanced development modes to the field of education and teaching, provided an open source virtual environment, made the teaching process break the time and space constraints, improved the low level of independent participation of traditional teaching students, and will bring subversive innovation to the field of teaching. With the development of VR technology, the reduction of the cost of VR equipment, and the national support for research in the field of VR teaching, the application of VR education will be more extensive, and the road of universal VR education will not be far away.












reference


[1] LI Zhixin, LIANG Xiaofeng, SUN Qianhui, et al. Research on disruptive innovation of VR education [J]. Market Research, 2017(11):11-13.


[2] Gao Haibo. Information & Computer (Theory Edition), 2019(02):231-232.]


[3] Wei Zhihui. Information & Computer, 2017(13):232-234. (in Chinese)