HONG KONG, Sept. 08, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — WIMI Hologram Academy, working in partnership with the Holographic Science Innovation Center, has written a new technical article describing their research on VR live plus online education application. This article follows below:

Today, with the continuous development of high technology, the traditional form of education is also gradually undergoing subtle changes. The sudden COVID-19 epidemic has forced online education to develop at a rapid pace. The development of VR live streaming under the premise of high-speed development of 5G communication technology also provides strong technical support for better presentation of online education. Scientists from WIMI Hologram Academy of WIMI Hologram Cloud Inc.(NASDAQ: WIMI), have analyzed and researched the specific applications of VR live streaming technology in online education, and discussed the significance and development of VR education.

1 Comparative analysis of traditional education and VR online education

A VR online education in the fall of 2018 is used as an example to specifically analyze the differences and connections between traditional education and VR online education. Through VR social networking software, American and Chinese students sat together across geographic distances to fully concentrate on ancient Egyptian symbols scribbled on a tomb on the Giza Plateau outside of Cairo, Egypt. The professor launched the lab and loaded a 3D model of the Sphinx and one of the tombs, which the team could grab and move around in the virtual learning space, with real-time HD video streaming and screen sharing, among other things. The Chinese and American students naturally broke into teams and used the mapping widget provided by the software to circle the hieroglyphs they would study in Egypt. Despite being separated by more than 7,000 miles, this natural conversation and immersive interaction made their trip to Egypt even more rewarding.

1.1 Comparative Analysis of Traditional Education and VR Education

According to constructivist learning theory, learning is the process of generating meaning and constructing understanding based on the original knowledge experience of the learner, and through the way of meaning construction, the learner continuously expands the boundaries of knowledge. People hope to filter the tedium of real life and enter into a pleasant experience space with the help of subjective psychological feelings such as imagination, experience and immersion. As immersive multimedia, the essence of VR is to achieve ultra-real visual, tactile, auditory and olfactory experience effects through human-computer interaction, and its technical means are developed by integrating computer graphics, human-computer interface technology, sensor technology and artificial intelligence technology. In the learning of knowledge, the use of VR technology, once again turning reality into reality, with hyper-realistic sensory stimulation, so that the abstract becomes another kind of figuration, becomes a source of interest. This virtual experience allows students to better enter into an immersive learning experience and even complete class exercises and assignments in a virtual space. Holographic communication allows students to deepen their subjective experience of learning in a deep and holistic way.

1.2 Comparative Analysis of Traditional Online Education and VR Live + Online Education

Although VR+ education also belongs to a kind of online education, it has upgraded traditional online education, which can not only make up for the shortage of classroom education, but even partially replace classroom education, and its subversive significance to the traditional education system cannot be underestimated. The introduction of Internet technology, VR online education is free from the constraints of time and space, greatly expanding the boundaries of education. However, the direct transplantation of traditional education to online will bring many realistic problems. On the one hand, the interactivity of online education inevitably has problems such as posteriority and fragmentation. When teachers teach online, they cannot notice students’ reactions at the first time, and teachers and students cannot realize effective two-way instant interaction, which inevitably leads to students’ distraction, and various external interference factors will also affect the education effect. Therefore, it is difficult to guarantee the teaching quality by simply moving offline education to online and live teaching by teachers. On the other hand, while online education achieves instant teaching, it also creates fragmentation and confusion. The systematic nature of teaching content is impaired due to the difficulty of student concentration. To sum up, the main source of the defects of the current online education is the systemic confusion brought by the temporal and spatial differences in education.

But the combination of VR technology, the use of high-end panoramic VR camera, wearing VR headset equipment, which will fully resolve the defects of traditional online education, to achieve the improvement of the effect of online education, mainly in the following two aspects: First, to solve the problem of teacher-student interaction. VR to three-dimensional interaction as the main feature, teachers and students in a pre-creative three-dimensional situation, not only to exclude external interference, but also because of the game created by the component, which greatly stimulates students’ interest in learning. For some of the experiments, practical training and other practical operations that need to be shown, the risk is excluded, which enables the practical teaching content to be shown in detail and fully. Compared with the real operation, students can operate in a three-dimensional context with high safety and repeated memorability. Even for the knowledge-based learning of basic subjects like language and mathematics, VR can transform part of the knowledge learning into 3D games, which can effectively enhance students’ attention. Second, it solves the problem of time fragmentation. The headset device separates the real and virtual space effectively, and the effectiveness even exceeds that of a closed campus, which excludes external interference to a greater extent. Once interference is ruled out, online education combined with the advantages of real classroom teaching through big data and cloud records will provide vibrant options for the supply of education.

2 Relevance of VR Live Streaming + Education Applications

The most intuitive thing about VR live application in education is that the live content is about education teaching, combining the advantages of virtual reality technology and live streaming in education to give learners a better learning experience.

2.1 Expand the multi-dimensionality of learning

The traditional way of learning is to read books, watch famous teachers live or already recorded videos, which can be boring after watching for a long time, and gradually lose focus, and only a lot of re-watching videos when encountering problems, which sometimes may not be the most compatible answers. VR live provides immersive scenes for students to feel the face-to-face live master lectures. Students in the VR classroom can do independent observation of all the information carriers in the scene, while receiving a full range of information, and along with the rhythm of the lecture and their own understanding to seize the key information, but also interact with the lecturer, ask their own questions, and find their own satisfactory answers. It not only helps to improve the teaching efficiency, but also can reduce the cost of students’ time and travel, without limiting the place of study. And the content is rich, not only campus courses, but also a variety of art, specialty, language, cooking and other training classes. When learners watch live online, they no longer have the trouble of being blocked by others, and their learning of knowledge no longer stays at the level of what they see is what they get, so they can choose the best orientation to watch and learn, and become the “only student” in the classroom, receiving the most comprehensive education and direct guidance.  

2.2 Stimulate learners’ interest in learning

Through the VR live teaching process, such as the teaching of biological origins, learners can see the biological and evolutionary processes that cannot exist now, eliminating the cognitive blockage caused by time and space, and making people physically and mentally happy, which will promote the systematization of knowledge structure, transmission and reception. Therefore, if the traditional way of imparting knowledge in education is compared to a flat map display, VR live education is a real-time three-dimensional map presentation, which not only naturally and effectively helps students deepen their knowledge impression, but also increases their interest in learning. In addition, VR live is not only convenient for the teaching process, and can enhance the learning experience, to aerobics teaching, for example, close viewing of the famous teacher to lead the dance of the kind of charm can most stimulate the desire to learn, more importantly, without leaving home can learn a variety of aerobics, the kind of close interaction and near the real sense, far beyond human imagination, so that the more people learn the more interested.  

3 More mature virtual reality education content

In a recently published survey of more than 900 developers working in augmented reality, virtual reality and mixed reality, one-third responded that education is the focus of their current or potential work. In addition to gaming and non-gaming entertainment, virtual reality scores higher than training, product design and any other non-entertainment application for educational applications such as after-school tutoring, STEM learning, field trips and online learning. Clearly education is driving the future of virtual reality more than any other industry outside of gaming and entertainment.

3.1 Virtual field trips

“Using virtual reality for fieldwork is a task that needs to be properly constructed and ponderous, and the good news is that once built, they can be distributed on a large scale.” says one academic. In fact, some companies in the market have already attracted millions of students through their virtual field trips, which focus on aerospace, health, technology and more. While there is no scientific verdict on whether virtual reality is more effective than other immersive media learning tools, it is showing real promise for teaching and learning. A recent study by U.S. researchers that examined field trips about climate change in virtual reality found that “participants who explored more virtual spaces formed deeper cognitive connections with the scientific content and were able to learn, recall and retain the causes and effects of ocean acidification better than those who did not explore the underwater world “.     

3.2 Art Education

Abstract Expressionist pioneer Helen Frankenthaler’s 1966 Blue Fall is in the permanent collection of the Milwaukee Art Museum. Any virtual reality user can zoom in on Frankenthaler’s bold cobalt pigment painting to take a closer look at it at will without ever leaving home. This makes it easy for users to bring the museum and gallery experience into virtual reality. Another notable example of the increasing virtualization of the art experience is the Kramer Museum, which houses paintings by various well-known Dutch masters in a virtual gallery.

3.3 Online Tutoring

Virtual reality also helps to better connect tutors with students who need additional instruction. One startup, based in Ithaca, New York, USA, was founded by two students. They pair students in grades 6 to 12 with qualified tutors and equip them with specialized headgear during tutoring sessions. The company specializes in computer science courses and also works with students in chemistry, biology and SAT prep courses. Tutors teach in a virtual classroom designed by the company, where they can pull up documents and write on a virtual whiteboard to further guide the class. And the company has partnered with schools in New York and Florida to plan AP computer science courses for high school students using VR equipment.

3.4 Virtual Lab Environment

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of STEM occupations in the U.S. will grow by nearly 11 percent from 2016 to 2026, which is more than 3.5 percent higher than the growth rate of non-STEM jobs. But universities conducting STEM learning that requires frequent hands-on work require state-of-the-art labs that are expensive to build and use. Already, companies have been able to mass-produce processes for 30 different virtual lab environments that can be accessed, allowing students to achieve real-world equivalents of culturing bacteria, tracking cellular respiration during experiments, and even performing ultrasounds on mothers-to-be. More than 250 institutions currently use the technology.

3.5 STEM Teaching and Learning

STEM education in K-12 is the preparation phase for STEM virtual labs in universities. To this end, some companies have set out to provide hundreds of common curriculum models geared toward the core standards, covering chemistry, biology, physics, and other science courses for K-12 learners. All courses offer interactive 3D or augmented reality technology. The company has also partnered with other companies to offer holographic lens extensions, such as allowing anatomy students to open, rotate and zoom in on 3D organ models. The company has developed interactive VR museum applications that immerse students in environments ranging from prehistoric nature scenes to outer space.

4 Major issues facing the development of VR education

VR education has always had high expectations and widespread interest, and the problems it faces have emerged with it. After all, VR education is not an easy and fast thing to subvert the traditional way of education.

(1) The primary problem facing the VR education industry today is the lack of content production. The test of content production, content planning and creative ability is the key to considering whether VR companies can form a differentiated standout. Quality VR education content requires the close combination of authoritative educational resources and the personal involvement of a senior education team that has been involved in education for many years in the production of content to make VR teaching content more accurate and reliable, and thus meet the actual needs of long-term teaching.

(2) The related technology is not mature. VR hardware technology cannot provide a good immersive experience yet, including the refresh rate and PPI of the screen, the computing power of the computing system, the size and weight of the device, etc., the comfort of the device is not good and the installation and debugging process is complicated. In addition, there is a lack of uniformity in spatial positioning tracking technology and interaction technology standards. Network transmission and other infrastructure also needs to be improved.

(3) VR live as an emerging industry chaos has brought a lot of negative impact. And the quality of VR equipment put into the market varies, bringing a lot of misunderstanding to the experience. For example, in order to solve the problem of myopia caused by VR glasses, Beijing University of Technology jointly released the results of a number of units jointly showed that VR does not make people’s eyesight reduced and will show more positive changes, and even as vision correction equipment.

5 Conclusion

VR live + online education is an emerging educational approach that both meets the current epidemic context and stimulates new ideas for educational development. Although there are still many realistic problems, new educational applications are still emerging. Making education more interesting has also become the premise for the continuous development of VR online education. The introduction of virtual reality technology into classroom teaching has become a necessary trend for future changes in teaching development.

Founded in August 2020, WIMI Hologram Academy is dedicated to holographic AI vision exploration and researches basic science and innovative technologies, driven by human vision. The Holographic Science Innovation Center, in partnership with WIMI Hologram Academy, is committed to exploring the unknown technology of holographic AI vision, attracting, gathering, and integrating relevant global resources and superior forces, promoting comprehensive innovation with scientific and technological innovation as the core, and carrying out basic science and innovative technology research.

Contacts
Holographic Science Innovation Center
Email: pr@holo-science. com