Oculus Looks To Educate Our Future Generation With Virtual Reality
Oculus has launched many meaningful initiatives over the years that has benefited our society. Today, they announced a new pilot program to further that cause. By partnering up with schools and public facilities around the world (Taiwan, Japan, and Seattle, United States), Oculus looks to help teachers, students, and various institutions on how to use VR for learning and collaboration.
The Oculus Education Pilot Program will focus on training teachers and other instructors, as learning the particulars of any technology is a critical step in creating—and scaling—a program of lasting impact and value according to the team. The programs will also gather valuable feedback and lessons learned, specifically around the unique needs of individual institutions, that we can share with our product teams to inform our future discussions and plans.
Taiwan
In Taiwan, Oculus will be donating their Rift and Oculus Go headsets to the Taiwan Internet and E-Commerce Association which will help distribute the HMDs to museums around the nation. This will hopefully help visitors experience VR and demo the technology.
Specific locations:
American Innovation Center, Kaohsiung Main Public Library Museum of Contemporary Art in Taipei, National Central Library, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, National Museum of Natural Science, National Taiwan Museum, New Taipei City Library (Main Library), Social Innovation Lab, Taipei Public Library (Main Library), and Taroko National Park Headquarters.
Seattle
Going in to the 2018-2019 school year, Oculus has partnered up with a few public schools in Seattle which includes Ballard High School and Franklin High School who will participate in a new program. “Students from both schools will spend the year creating educational VR content with the goal that it can eventually be used in the classroom. And students will collaborate between their schools through VR under teacher supervision,” said Oculus.
Japan
Oculus will be launching this new pilot program with educators who are interested in using VR for long distance learning and educational applications for high school students. “We’re working with these educators to connect students in remote parts of the country to teachers through VR, ensuring all students have access to coursework and educational materials regardless of their location and proximity to physical institutions.”
Oculus looks to enrich the minds of our future generation with the evolving technology in virtual reality.