Episode 76: Demystifying the Integration of VR, AR, and AI into K-12 Education — Preparing Students for the Future Job Landscape

Ever imagined how our traditional classrooms would look if they were amped up with cutting-edge technologies like augmented reality, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence? Well, brace yourself as I take you through a thrilling exploration of the potential of these immersive learning tools in shaping our K-12 education system. Your journey begins with an examination of these technologies, their benefits, possible drawbacks, and the barriers to their large-scale implementation.  I delve into how these tools can revolutionize learning experiences, while also striking a note of caution on excessive VR usage and the importance of maintaining an effective, balanced learning environment.

But, it's not just about the tools themselves. You need to understand the roles of various stakeholders - students, educators, schools, and technology manufacturers, in integrating this tech into classrooms. Technology is not just reshaping classrooms, but also preparing our students for the jobs of the future. Let's dissect how increased creativity, the growing potential of online education, and AI's current applications are influencing K-12 education. In this changing landscape, we must ensure our students are future-ready. Stay with me as I explore these issues and provide action steps for educators to stay ahead of the curve. The future is here, and it's being written by us!

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:40

Welcome to another episode of K-12 Education Untangled. My name is Dr Kim Fields, former corporate manager turned educational researcher and advocate, and I'm the host of this podcast. I got into this space after dealing with some frustrating interactions with school educators and administrators, as well as experiencing the micro discriminations that I faced as an African American mom raising my two kids, who were in the public school system, I really wanted to understand how teachers were trained and what the research provided about the challenges of the public education system. Once I gained the information and the insights that I needed, I was then equipped to be able to successfully support my children in their educational progress. If you're looking to find out more about current information and issues in education that could affect you or your children, then you're in the right place. Thanks for tuning in today. I know that staying informed about K-12 education trends and topics is important to you, so keep listening.

Speaker 1: 1:53

On today's episode, I'll be discussing the use of augmented reality, virtual reality and artificial intelligence in the classroom. While augmented reality and virtual reality would seem to be innovative tools in K-12 public schools, the adoption and implementation of these technologies is not so straightforward. Also, the number of students who accessed virtual reality and augmented reality through head-mounted displays was nearly 83 million in 2021. These technologies have found a home in some K-12 schools because they have great potential. Yet there are barriers in these technologies' abilities to meet today's needs in schools. Let's get started.

Speaker 1: 2:50

Virtual reality has been touted as the next big thing in education for more than two decades. Prior to this, virtual reality environments have been used in medicine, psychiatry, engineering and avionics. Augmented reality R, ar and virtual reality BR have been used as technology tools in various course classrooms, including language classes, history classes, computer science and traditional science classes. The greatest value of BR and AR is introducing students to learning experiences that they don't normally get, like walking to the edge of volcano. Augmented reality is the technology that overlays information and images as a student goes about day-to-day life without using an immersive headset. Although these technologies are used in history courses, science courses and language courses, the content is still lacking, especially content connected to the teacher's curriculum that needs to be integrated with these devices. The potential for augmented reality is that it blends digital and real-world environments, which creates an immersive experience for students. The use of virtual reality headsets is helping classrooms that have small group activities. Schools will need low-cost devices that run sophisticated software which allow these technologies to be implemented and students to collaborate. Currently, the cost of the headsets can be a barrier for schools who want to implement AR and BR. To get around this, schools may implement virtual reality labs with a few devices, like they did several years ago by setting up computer labs when computers were first introduced in educational settings.

Speaker 1: 5:00

I'm going to first be discussing virtual reality, followed by augmented reality and wrapping up with artificial intelligence. Immersive virtual reality environments those that are artificial environments that are convincing enough for users to engage with them as if they were real tend to have many positive effects on a student's cognitive, effective and psychomotor skills, all of which create a perception of reality and a sense of presence in students, facilitates learning, increases motivation, creates a safe and interactive learning environment, as well as many contributions to learning. Virtual learning environments have the opportunity to enrich learning and teaching environments. These environments are a sophisticated human-computer interface that mimic real-world environments. A virtual reality environment is a dynamic one because it responds to and interacts with the user's command inputs. The three essential components of virtual reality include immersion, interactivity and imagination. Vr environments have a positive effect on students' academic success and the increased student satisfaction levels. These environments also contribute to a student's increased motivation and critical thinking skills, as well as increased student engagement. The most significant contribution of VR to instructional settings has been the replacement of printed materials with image and simulation-based content. This transforms the classroom setting from a textbook-based environment to an interactive environment. Types of virtual reality environments include augmented reality, walled-o-world, cyberspace and provision dome.

Speaker 1: 7:13

Some companies have developed virtual reality technology for schools using simple means. For example, google created expeditions, an education-focused immersive experience which allows educators to choose from over 100 destinations and guide the expeditions from a connected tablet. The system is compatible with Cardboard, which is Google's open-source, low-budget response to Facebook's Oculus Rift and Sony's Project Morpheus. It works on Android and iPhone smartphones, as well as iPad tablets that most schools already have made investments in. The hope is that the immersive experience will get students more excited and engaged in learning about the world they live in, and that they could possibly get a lot more from just learning these concepts from a textbook.

Speaker 1: 8:17

There's a caution to spending too much time in virtual reality. People, including students, may have trouble getting back out into the real world. This is something that definitely needs to be monitored, especially in a generation that's already more deeply plugged in than any other generation in history. As technology, being what it is, gets less and less expensive for these types of application, content is the harder piece. This is where the biggest cost is going to be and where the biggest contribution from outside providers is going to be. Students and teachers are able to generate their own user-generated content which can be uploaded to large-scale repositories like YouTube.

Speaker 1: 9:10

Virtual reality is well-suited for explaining complex issues. Immersive VR technologies allow multi-sensory interaction and students can construct meaning from their experience. It makes teaching of complex or abstract ideas more useful, because it provides a means of visualization and allows natural hypothesis making. Immersive virtual reality environments also support diverse profiles of students, such as those who are academically weak or students who are comfortable with learning from digital technologies and who build their self-efficacy and confidence in performance tasks. It's especially powerful for students to apply their scientific knowledge in realistic settings, as well as increase the transfer of learning to the real world. The use of VR and AR can provide a more varied and authentic experience, which can enhance equity and opportunity for all students. Immersive VR is not about the technology, but more about a measured approach of integrating VR into lessons, with specific learning outcomes that are in line with curricular goals.

Speaker 1: 10:27

Vr is a component of micro-learning which focuses on a specific topic or idea. The main advantages of using virtual reality are one, providing a fun teaching and learning environment. Two, creating an interactive environment. Three, improving students' motivation on the learning activity. Four, enhancing students' critical thinking skills. And five, providing students with authentic learning material. Virtual reality and education generally yields positive findings, including increased time on task empowerment, motivation and deeper and long-term retention for students who participate using this technology. Vr also helps to facilitate distance learning.

Speaker 1: 11:24

In spite of these positive results, vr systems have failed to gain widespread adoption in education. There are four main categories for why VR has been slow to be adopted in the public school system. These categories include overhead, input problems, output problems and usefulness. Overhead refers to the costs associated with designing or implementing VR software and education. These costs include set-up time, software and hardware costs and training for both students and teachers. Implementing VR software in the classroom not only involves the initial costs of purchase of the hardware or software, but ongoing costs, as well as including maintenance, support and training. Input problems refer to all the issues involved with hardware inputs and device recognition inaccuracies. Output problems include lack of sufficient realism, software usability issues and motion sickness. Usefulness refers to the effectiveness of a VR system in the educational context, questioning whether it's fit for a specific purpose. It encompasses such considerations as ineffectiveness and lack of engagement.

Speaker 1: 12:52

According to a 2018 report from the non-profit group Common Sense Media, 62% of parents believe VR will provide educational experiences for their children. However, 60% of those same parents are at least somewhat concerned about the negative health effects. Only 43% of parents indicated that virtual reality was appropriate for children under 13. The biggest concern that parents reported about virtual reality was that children would be exposed to sexual or violent content. The biggest barrier to virtual reality adoption among parents was the lack of interest.

Speaker 1: 13:37

There are developmental concerns that have been raised by researchers. These include whether young children can distinguish physical from virtual reality. Vr's impact on a child's impulse, control and aggression, and some children's apparent tendency to treat time spent in virtual reality more like an actual experience rather than like a media experience such as watching TV. Because VR has the potential to capture information on everything from a user's physiological reactions to his or her emotional states, this raises data privacy protection concerns. Additionally, there are some health side effects, such as nausea, dizziness and eye fatigue when using VR classes. Therefore, relevant precautions should be taken accordingly before initiating the use of virtual reality in the classroom. Researchers have started to highlight a range of unexplored ethical considerations around VR use with children. For example, virtual reality can be a powerful trigger for existing emotional and psychological issues, and scientists are just beginning to understand how exposure to immersive virtual environments affects children's brains and development. The bottom line is that K-12 educators and policymakers would be wise to keep an eye on VR's potential, but not overestimate the future benefits of it. Large and small companies continue trying to make inroads into the educational market. In 2018, facebook announced that it would give every high school in Arkansas a virtual reality package that consisted of computers, cameras and its Oculus Rift headset.

Speaker 1: 15:45

Now let's move on to Augmented Reality. Augmented Reality technology integrates digital information with real environments in which people live. Everything is processed and produced in real time. This is one of the main differences when compared to virtual reality, which uses artificial environments, augmented Reality uses real world and completes it with digital information. Basically, it increases the amount of information that a person can take from the environment. This technology is less developed because it needs a lot of processing power. It has to interpret the real world and adhere to it all the digital information available to the system in question. Compared to virtual reality, in which the environment is completely programmed, in augmented reality technology, the environment is alive and behaves unpredictably. The main applications that have shown this technology's potential have been interior design, video conferencing, visits to malls, etc. And this technology is basically just a visualization tool. Augmented Reality uses virtual elements only to enhance the real world and the user's experience. This technology is able to offer services through tablets or mobile phones. To distinguish the difference between virtual reality and augmented reality, virtual reality is 10% real and 90% virtual. Augmented Reality is 75% real and 25% virtual. Based on current market applications, the most popular or best known example of augmented reality technology is Pokemon Go.

Speaker 1: 17:41

The key stakeholders in the educational role of technology include students, educators, schools and manufacturers. The students are the ones who typically embrace the use of new technology and will therefore be the ones who will receive enriched learning experiences. The educators know what parts of the subject will be best suited to and best complemented by this educational experience for their students. They also know what areas of the subject content that students will need more help with. Schools have to invest in educational innovation in order to provide products and training that will raise their educational quality to the highest level. The manufacturers are the creators of the products and their devices. Applications and events are the fundamental elements to the expansion of the new augmented reality virtual tools that are used in the classroom. Increasing the number of students who manage to acquire minimum knowledge demanded by a 21st century competitive workplace is the only mission of these tools.

Speaker 1: 18:56

The main facilitators for adoption of augmented reality technologies within the education sector are the students. The next facilitator in the stakeholder chain are the schools and the final facilitator is the educators, who may also be the main barriers. The reason for this is that teachers have not yet been fully trained to use technology within their teaching functions. The second main barrier is the content itself. Manufacturers of the software that run on augmented reality systems focus on concepts that may be interesting for students but don't align with the teacher's specific curriculum. This is where the disconnect occurs.

Speaker 1: 19:48

The learning methodologies that have the greatest impact on the current K-12 education system are those that present students with the real situation that they have to solve, using acquired theoretical knowledge or by making students enhance their capabilities and capacities that were either non-existent or underdeveloped. Students who struggle to achieve some learning goals with a low rate of success will be able to achieve those goals successfully, because these technologies contribute to making many abstract concepts more tangible, thus increasing the rate of student success. Augmented reality will allow students to work by increasing their creativity and helping them display a final product without the need to complete a physical manufacturing process. Online education is the educational segment that can grow the most using these technologies. The future for virtual and augmented reality through online education will more than likely happen, because the educational programs introduce real experiences that make use of these technologies. This could equalize distance learning with face-to-face teaching, making even more use of the flexibility that distance learning already entails. In the future, these virtual and augmented reality systems could be applied to collaborative social systems that would allow students to attend the class and perceive that they're sitting in the classroom, surrounded by their classmates and seeing the teacher in front of them teaching the subject. Just five percent of teachers in the United States say that they are currently using AR or VR in the classroom. According to the nonprofit group Project Tomorrow, which surveyed hundreds of thousands of students, parents, teachers and school administrators, the educational potential of augmented reality is more evident than for virtual reality, yet it lacks sufficient penetration in the K-12 educational market.

Speaker 1: 22:11

And finally, I wrap my discussion up with artificial intelligence. The labor market has shifted due to AI. Jobs of the future might be described as cyber attack agent, data detective, augmented reality journey builder, ai business development manager and artificial intelligence assisted healthcare technician. The big question is what do K-12 schools need to do to prepare children for jobs that don't exist yet? The first thing they need to do is make it clear to students that graduation day isn't the end of learning. Schools need to instill a mentality of lifelong learning in their students. They need to understand that there's always going to be learning and that they are always going to be growing.

Speaker 1: 23:13

Ai is improving school management as well as student learning. Artificial intelligence programs are increasingly being used to identify patterns in student language or behavior that could foreshadow school violence. Ai is being used in smart building management software that helps manage HVAC, lighting and security. As far as student learning is concerned, ai is being used to give students the chance to learn and create virtual experiences. The technology is also being integrated in assistive technologies, utilizing dozens of features benefiting special needs learners with tools such as voice recognition, text-to-voice and text modification. Improving the student learning experience also involves early learning, adaptive platforms that include games and toys for small children. Examples of this will include Kidaptive and Osmo, which is an interactive game that combines online and hands-on learning. Also, adaptive learning programs like curriculum associates, iredi, which is a widely used adaptive reading and math software, can help to support better student learning.

Speaker 1: 24:38

Are students academically prepared for a future of jobs that have yet to be imagined and are shaped by technologies that have yet to be invented? Artificial intelligence impacts what schools teach and how those learning outcomes affect workers in tomorrow's workforce. Most schools seem to be ignoring, or at least unaware of, how these changes will affect their classrooms. What could an AI-enabled future look like in education? It could look like a young student with a commercially available virtual mentor that curates his or her comprehensive educational environment. This and other scenarios abound.

Speaker 1: 25:26

Yet the focus should be on increasing students' non-academic qualities like creativity, critical thinking, collaboration and curiosity. The emphasis should also be on transferring what is learned in the classroom and applying that in the real world. Students must be prepared to reinvent themselves as they learn, grow and enter the workforce. Students need to be empowered to take control of their own learning, especially as new technology like AI shakes up the workforce. Students need to be self-motivated and find connection between learning and working, and they need to maintain a strong sense of curiosity across disciplines. Additionally, they need to seek role models and mentors through face-to-face and online connections, as well as participating communities of like-minded individuals. They should be digital producers as well as consumers, sharpening their coding and design skills to create websites, apps and virtual reality games, and they need to develop their social-emotional skills, learning to work in groups as well as taking on leadership and teaching roles. The sooner that schools and other learning centers give students more freedom and flexibility to be in charge of their learning lives, the better their chances are of thriving in careers that are yet to be imagined. Here are some action steps that you can take regarding this topic To broaden your understanding of VR's capabilities for enhancing learning experiences.

Speaker 1: 27:16

Check out YouTube's VR channel, search by subject and then filter for 360. For example, search YouTube 360, biology or YouTube VR Geography. If you have a VR headset, you can open videos in YouTube to be more truly immersive. National Geographic 360 also has videos on science, exploration and adventure. Youtube VR has videos on people, places and nature around the world. Other resources include 360Citiesnet, which has cityscapes and countryside panoramas from around the world, and UVisitcom, which shows US cities and college campuses. That's you while you visitcom. Some of the providers may require downloading their app in order to view the content, but it does give you hands-on experience with VR's capabilities. Also, if your child uses VR headsets for gaming or entertainment, monitor the amount of time they spend using the headsets, given that some children can experience physical discomfort from overuse.

Speaker 1: 29:01

The greatest value of VR and AR is introducing students to learning experiences that they don't normally get. Augmented reality is the technology that overlays information and images as a student goes about day-to-day life without using an immersive headset. Immersive virtual reality environments tend to have many positive effects on the student's cognitive, effective and psychomotor skills, all of which create a perception of reality and a sense of presence in students. Facilitation learning increases motivation, creates a safe and interactive learning environment, as well as make many contributions to learning. Virtual learning environments enrich learning and teaching environments. Vr is a component of micro learning which focuses on a specific task or topic or idea. The main advantages of using virtual reality are providing a fun teaching and learning environment, creating an interactive environment, improving students' motivation on the learning activity, enhancing students' critical thinking skills and providing students with authentic learning material, vr systems have failed to gain widespread adoption in education. There are four main categories for why VR is slow to be adopted in public schools, and these include overhead input problems, output problems and usefulness.

Speaker 1: 30:46

Augmented reality technology integrates digital information with real environments in which people live. Everything is processed and produced in real time. This is one of the main differences. When compared to virtual reality, which uses artificial environments, augmented reality uses the real world and completes it with digital information. The learning methodologies that have the greatest impact on the current K-12 educational system are those that present students with a real situation that they have to solve using acquired theoretical knowledge or by making students enhance their capacities that were either non-existent or underdeveloped. Students who struggle to achieve some learning goals with a low rate of success will be able to achieve those goals successfully, because these technologies contribute to making many abstract concepts more tangible, thus increasing the rate of student success. Artificial intelligence impacts what schools teach and how those learning outcomes affect workers in tomorrow's workforce. Most schools seem to be ignoring, or at least unaware of, how these changes will affect their classrooms. Students must be prepared to reinvent themselves as they learn, grow and enter the future workforce they need to be empowered to take control of their own learning, especially as new technologies like AR, vr and AI shake up the workforce.

Speaker 1: 32:45

Did you enjoy today's episode? If so, then leave me a rating or review or a comment on Apple or PodChaser. Leaving me a review is a great way to support me and help my podcast grow. Remember to share this episode with anyone that you think will find valuable, so tell your friends, family and community about my podcast. Thanks for listening today. I hope you'll come back for more K-12 educational discussions with even more exciting topics to untangle, and be sure to stay tuned. On the next episode, I'll be discussing personalized and self-led learning. Until next time, aim to learn something new every day.