Virtual Reality at SXSWedu:Hopeful Forecasts and the British Museum’s Lessons

By Blake Montgomery Mar 11, 2016

At the SXSWedu workshop “Enhancing Learning with Virtual and Augmented Reality,” held on Monday, Mar. 7, roughly 20 people spent most of the time waiting in line to try one of the three devices, according to Maya Georgieva. The event made her nervous that there wouldn’t be enough devices at her own talk, “Learning Through Virtual Reality Experiences,” presented with her co-founder, Emory Craig. Together, they have created Digital Bodies, an outlet that covers how wearable tech, virtual reality included, will influence teaching and learning.

Fast forward to their session on Wednesday, where they began by profiling the virtual reality device industry and its upcoming offerings—including Oculus, the Homido Mini, Meta Glass, Microsoft’s Hololens, the Mattel Viewmaster, Magic Leap, Google Cardboard, Samsung Gear VR—and discussing how most of the high-profile tools are currently in the development stage. Few devices are out on the market now, but virtually every major tech company and even major film studios like Lucasfilm have announced a device that will enter the space in 2016. There is even a virtual reality theme park in Utah and a theater in Amsterdam. The virtual world is about to get crowded.

The speakers were optimistic. “It’s now really about experiences. It’s no longer about content,” Georgieva said. “It’s no longer about visual resources on a device. It’s about worlds.”

Worksheet from "Enhancing Learning with Virtual Reality." Shot by Blake Montgomery

Craig then quoted Chris Milk, CEO of virtual reality app Vrse, who famously dubbed virtual reality the “last medium”:

“Ultimately, what we’re talking about is a medium that disappears, because there is no rectangle on the wall,” Milk told Re/code, “and there is no page you’re holding in your hand. It feels like real life.”

Milk also offered an opinion on the proliferation of press about virtual reality with comparatively little content and few devices: “I prefer making stuff to talking about how I made the stuff,” he said. “Right now, there’s a lot of people using the technology and the format to impress people. There’s a certain reliance on the ‘wow’ factor out there. If people are going to engage with the technology on a longer scale, they’re going to need deeper, more affecting, more human stories to engage with.” ... Read more

Robots should be introduced into classrooms to attract more girls into coding, says technology leader

 From Texas, Media Editor Ian Burrell reports on moves to attract more girls to technology

    Ian Burrell Media Editor

Robots should be introduced to primary-school lessons in order to show a more “humanistic” side of coding and to help attract more girls to the digital sector, a government-backed technology leader has said.

Gerard Grech, CEO of Tech City, a showcase network of UK-based technology companies, said an early introduction to robotic human models and vehicles would assist children as young as five in appreciating the value of learning how to write code, which is already part of the new computing curriculum for five- to 16-year-olds.

“We could go further and introduce robotics to make technology even more accessible regardless of gender – that’s where you make technology come alive,” Grech said. “The more physical something can be, the more it can be inspirational.”

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Iranian school teacher builds robot to teach children prayers

Robotics has already been introduced into schools as part of an experiment in Estonia, which was one of the first countries to teach coding to young children and is the home of Skype.

Grech was talking from the South by Southwest (SXSW) conference in Austin, Texas, where the issue of sexism in the technology sector, and especially in gaming, was a big topic last week. Women games developers spoke of receiving death threats for taking up prominent positions in the industry.

Grech said the UK tech sector needed to do more to encourage women, and called for an overhaul of recruitment procedures to eradicate gender discrimination on interview panels. “We could introduce more attitude-testing as part of the interview process, and more initiatives to ensure there is no subconscious bias,” he said.

Grech also called for “more role models” to inspire girls to follow careers in technology. He highlighted the importance of British-based women such as Sarah Wood, co-founder of video advertising tech company Unruly, tech investor Sherry Coutu, Kathryn Parsons of tech campaign group DeCoded, American-born venture capitalist Eileen Burbidge and tech entrepreneur Wendy Tan White, founder of the software company Moonfruit. ...Read more