Dec
2016
VR, AR and IoT beyond Second Life
VR, AR, and the Internet of Things: Life Beyond Second Life
https://campustechnology.com/Articles/2016/12/06/Life-Beyond-Second-Life-VR-AR-IoT.aspx
But it gets even more interesting when virtual and augmented reality meet the Internet of Things
when Second Life began, there was a lot of interest, but the toolset was limited — just because of the timeframe, not that the toolset wasn’t a good one for that period. But, things matured. I think it was, in particular, the ability to work in HD that improved things a lot. Then came the ability to bring in datasets — creating dashboards and ways for people to access other data that they could bring into the virtual reality experiment. I think those two things were real forces for change.
A dashboard could pop up, and you could select among several tools, and you could get a feed from somewhere on the Internet — maybe a video or a presentation. And you can use these things as you move through this hyper reality: The datasets you select can be manipulated and be part of the entire experience.
So, the hyper reality experience became deeper, richer with tools and data via the IoT; and with HD it became more real.
We can’t deny the fact that curriculum and the way we teach is becoming unbundled. Some things are going to happen online and in the virtual space, and other things will happen in the classroom. And the expense of education is going to drive how we operate. Virtual reality tools, augmented reality tools, and visualization tools can offer experiences that can be mass-produced and sent out to lots of students, machine to machine, at a lower cost. Virtual field trips and other kinds of virtual learning experiences will become much more commonplace in the next 5 years.