Virtual Reality in Schools: One important Consideration.

Virtual Reality in Classrooms: Being first comes with Responsibility 

I had the privilege of attending a very informative session on VR in education, yesterday, in Dubai. There were many takeaways and bookmarks.

I particularly enjoy discourse on VR in education, and being fortunate to have a spouse who’s a qualified early child education specialist, it was natural to want to introduce VR to our then 4 year old (in 2014) The above image is from this article titled: Virtual Reality Field Trips: VR in Education. 

Edd, in the video, was already fascinated with space, the moon landings and Buzz Aldrin. So when I learned NASA had open sourced some panoramic imagery of Mars, I was eager to have Edd take a virtual field trip. But, possibly being the first 4 year old to step into Virtual reality back in 2014, I had to make sure I was doing everything possible within my understanding, to cause no unintentional harm to those young, developing eyeballs.

I started with one stereoscopic panorama – because with ‘scale’ comes presence in VR. However, better sense prevailed and I switched to monoscopic imagery in further sessions with little Edd.

This article will focus (pun unintended) on one aspect of VR in Schools… that NO extensive study or best practices guide has touched on yet, that of stereoscopic imagery, vergence-accommodation coupled with mechanical inconsistencies that VR HMDs might have on young kids being introduced to VR.

[ Side note: I have a sterographer background with the good fortune of having a peer reviewed book on Stereoscopic filmmaking, used during the making of the hit film HUGO as well as used as recommended reading for Immersive Media courses at the USC ]

(screen grab from the Common Sense Media report. Copyrights acknowledged)

Before we get to the main focus of this article I would highly recommend a download of the well researched Common Sense Media report: Virtual Reality 101: What you need to know about kids and VR  The free registration to access the report is worth the effort.

I agree with all of the advice and insights made in the report, however the points mentioned in this article are not thoroughly covered.

I came to know of the Common Sense Media report only yesterday during the Q&A session at the event I attended when I was a bit alarmed at seeing visuals of young students using a variety of headsets. I will preface the rest of this article by saying there is great pioneering work being done by the invited speaker, Steve Bambury, and would again, highly recommend bookmarking his not for profit website: Virtualiteach 

I did question whether there was enough insight to warrant students between 4 – 8yrs being immersed in VR, the specifics of the production of the content (more below) and specifics of the Headsets being used. I did not get a satisfactory answer to be honest, which leads us to the title and focus of this article.

Focus Point One:  VR HMDs for Kids

The screenshot above is from the VR Viewmaster. It shows how a compatible phone is to be inserted into the viewer. While the device itself looks sturdy enough, it is similar in concept to the famous Google Cardboard VR viewers. What needs to be asked is, can we guarantee the inserted phone is 100% aligned to the center marker? If it is not, and off by even a couple of millimeters, younger eyeballs are viewing VR content – worse if it is stereoscopic – in a less than optimal VR system. What reports have been done (if any) on this aspect? I suspect, none.

Focus Point Two: Stereoscopic or Monoscopic content for young kids.

To teleport a four year old, in VR to Mars, I chose to swap the realism that stereoscopy provides and settled to using only monoscopic imagery. That decision was made as there is no long term study (how could there be) on side effects if any, of binocular and stereopsis development that might occur in young kids with:

• Hardbaked IPDs (interaxials) on many VR Headsets designed for the average adult.
• Poorly produced stereoscopic content. While educational CG content created in Engines can certainly assist in creating correct stereo imagery, it is no guarantee. To compound this, production studios creating video based VR content are not always on the mark or worse – not aware of what Pseudo-Stereoscopy is. There are numerous reviews on the RealVision knowledgbase supporting this argument.

Focus Point Three: Photon to Motion Latency

In brief, this is down to the quality of the (usually) cellphone display being used in cheaper VR viewers. The speed of the IMU unit and the refresh rate play a very important role in VR viewing and experience comfort. While less than optimal displays can cause nausea in adults, spare a thought when encouraging younger students to insert cell phones into these VR viewers.

There is a reason Samsung gave access to the phone hardware – bypassing the android OS – to Oculus for the Oculus GearVR HMD. Simply put, a high end phone is always better than a low end phone, when inserted into a Google Cardboard or other plastic VR headset which usually is the budget for classroom VR. For the technically inclined, here’s more on Photon to motion lag

The Solution: 

Educators, Parents… With being first also comes being responsible.

Do follow the recommended age guides as listed by VR headset manufacturers and tabulated in the Common Sense Media guide above. I am keen to have VR in classrooms and would emphasize at least the two focus points of this article be paid attention to for kids under 12.

• Check the alignment of VR displays.
• Use high end VR displays or phones as much as possible, to mitigate nausea and ill effects caused by Photon to Motion lag.
• Prefer monoscopic content over stereoscopic content for kids in the 4 – 10 yr (at least) bracket.