Category: Blog

Language Immersion Final Proposal

Introduction

The idea behind the proposed virtual reality experience, “Language Immersion”, is to expose students to different parts of the world, and different languages. Students commonly take classes to learn languages, and practice specific words and concepts during class time. A big part of language is how it is used casually with the slang and colloquialisms used within a native speakers daily life. These colloquialisms might not be learned in a classroom setting, because no native speakers may be present. Language Immersion can help students immerse themselves into the natural environment of a language, and learn how it is spoken naturally, and formally. A study was done with the game “Second Life” to see if anonymous online learning would be more helpful in language learning, than a classroom environment. The data did show that it was helpful, and some students appreciated their interactions with native speakers in a way that was casual and without the penalty of failure (Melchor-Couto). Exploring a foreign area with an unfamiliar language is not only educational, but fun.

The target audience for this product are students, and or other individuals that are trying to learn a foreign language. While Language Immersion can be used for personal use, the main idea is to use Language Immersion to increase a students understanding in a language that they are learning, and not solely be taught words, and sentences. While classroom-based learning has the possibility of a student forgetting what was learned by the end of class, Language Immersion will draw its audience in with its simple design; in the foreign environment a student or individual is exposed to, accomplishing daily tasks, and using different methods than traditional classroom and textbook learning, can help them make the leap in learning their desired language. 

Learning Objectives and Outcomes
  • The user will learn foreign languages by being immersed into a foreign environment
  • The user will learn foreign languages by being immersed in environments where the language is spoken fluently
  • The user will be exposed to a variety of foreign language scenarios and be able to listen and learn
  • Uses difficulty levels to introduce a number of different concepts related to language
  • The user should learn a language in a more casual and practical sense

Language Immersion is educational, because it simulates real world experiences for someone who is learning a new language. Many people learn languages quicker and more effectively when they are immersed in an experience. According to the Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition, “research finds that immersion students whose first language is not English become more balanced bilinguals and develop higher levels of bilingualism” (carla.unm.edu). If these students are required to use the foreign language, they will be more likely to learn it. Other language applications fail, because they are not practical, or realistic. They are often too structured, and do not allow a user to truly be exposed to a language. These applications teach you how the language works on paper, but are unable to show and immerse a user into an environment surrounding a desired language, failing to accurately teach slang or casual conversation. This is an area that VR immersion excels in. By total immersion into a language, and into an environment that is real and accurate, users will be allowed to feel as if they were away from home, and their native language.

Progress can be assessed by using data that is gathered from the users of the Language Immersion experience. This data can tell us vital information, such as, if a user is passing levels, and increasing their knowledge and fluidity in a certain language. In addition, when applied to a classroom setting, teachers can evaluate the students’ progress before and after using the experience for the time of use, based on the curriculum. For example, a written knowledge base line test could be administered prior to using the Language Immersion VR App, and then after continued use for a week or more, a second test can be administered. This experience can be developed to fit a number of flexible curriculum’s and time frames, but just for an example, a week is appropriate. Scores and results can be shared between institutions, teachers, and the application developer in order to further understand how language learning is being affected by the immersion of VR. A beneficial data collection can also be conducted in the applications early development stages, to test if people are learning from it. This would be similar to focus groups and/or play tests. By utilizing focus groups and play tests, certain aspects of production or development could be revisited, in order to release a more complete application.

User Experience / User Interface

Language Immersion will be usable through Google Cardboard, Galaxy Gear and any of the more advanced virtual reality set ups. Our goal is to reach maximum accessibility, so that it can reach a bigger audience. In it’s simple design, this application will not have too many choices that might overwhelm the audience. An example of this simplicity are the first, four choices presented, including different roads. In the use of the Google Cardboard, each choice can be selected by using the small button on the top of the cardboard. The layout of Language Immersion is similar to a point and click adventurer, but instead of exploring a picture, a user is exploring a 3D immersive virtual space. The first level will take place on a city block, with signs in the foreign language, and people will be walking around. Someone will walk up to the user and ask for directions to a specific place, tasking the user with leading them there. The success of that task will depend on the ability of the user to understand that language, even with background noise and other conversations occurring around them. The best place to film this virtual experience is on a city block in the United States, and build it on actual clues that exist in that area to orient people; this will look very similar to Google Street View.

Implementing would be speaking responses, instead of just pointing and clicking, will be the next step in Language Immersion. In the example of the task of giving directions, to direct the person, a user would have to use their words to guide them to a certain location. The difficulty to implement voice in Language Immersion is unknown, but it would be a massive step not only for the application, but teaching, as well. A similar example of this technology is the built-in microphone in the Duolingo Mobile app, that allows users to speak into the app to answer questions, and prove that they can pronounce each word correctly.

Implementation Strategy

Our teams goal is to market Language Immersion to teachers and schools, as a supplement to language classes. A great way to market this application would be to attend various teaching conventions, and set up demos to try to appeal to this demographic. One conference our team would market at would be the Modern Language Association (MLA) Convention which is held yearly, and in 2018, had an attendance of 6,040 teachers and scholars (Modern Language Association). The MLA convention is an appropriate place to demo at, because there are many language educators that would be interested in the product. Another convention is the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages annual convention, hosted by an organization of more than 12500 language educators and administrators (ACTFL).

Also, Language Immersion will be marketed to regular consumers to use, if they want to learn a language on their own, like Duolingo. It would be downloadable as an app, and used with Google Cardboard, which is fairly accessible. Advertising through Instagram, Reddit and Twitter would be the most successful way, because it needs to appeal to a more tech savvy audience. Additionally, we could send our application to various tech savvy or education-minded internet personalities to test and sponsor our product, if they are interested. Some possible personalities would be the Vlogbrothers, two brothers who cover various topics, but find an interest in talking about education, with 3.1 million subscribers on YouTube, VSauce, a science YouTube brand with 13 Million subscribers on the main channel, and Austin McConnell, an eclectic YouTuber with almost 730,000 subscribers, who covers content such as books, film, weird trivia, and  obscure history.

Long Term Vision

The initial prototype is being kept simple, because at this time, our goal is the quality of the application, not how much it can do. In keeping our project focused, we have limited the paths to four, and a few interactions will occur based on a users actions in the application. In a series of applications to come in the next five years, there will be free roam mode, voice interactions, stories, and more chapters. In free roam mode, users will have conversations with people in environments that they find, by either wondering, or picking a location to travel to. With the experience of free roam mode, a user can be even more immersed, because there is no script behind the actions they take.

Voice interactions in and out of free roam mode, will enable a user to talk to the people in the experience, instead of clicking the VR headset. This will make interactions more interesting for the user, including in, hospitals, restaurants, and other areas, not just cities. As the levels increase, the application will memorize who the user meets, and increase the complexity of the conversations based on the difficulty level, including more slang and casual conversation.

Secondary audiences could be immigrants who want to come to the United States, as they often use the world and media around them to learn the language of the country that they move to. This application can help people learn English before they migrate, for it would immerse them into the environment of a specific area they are moving to. The next phase of development will be releasing more languages, and more locations, based on the popularity of languages. Not only would students benefit from the educational value of knowing a second language, but those who are learning for work, and or personal purposes will benefit, also.

Works Cited

Melchor-Couto, Sabela. “Virtual World Anonymity and Foreign Language Oral Interaction.” ReCALL, vol. 30, no. 02, 2018, pp. 232–249., doi:10.1017/s0958344017000398.

Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Susan J. Wolfson. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelleys Frankenstein, or, The Modern Prometheus. Pearson Longman, 2007.

Increasing Student Engagement and Retention Using Mobile Applications : Sma…: Books, Articles and More. https://eds.a.ebscohost.com/eds/detail/detail?vid=3&sid=8958ac06-1457-4297-9d39-ea5bcfcb4864%40sessionmgr4008&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmUmc2NvcGU9c2l0ZQ%3d%3d#AN=513323&db=nlebk. Accessed 29 Nov. 2018.

Evaluation of Distance Education Applications in the Kyrgyz Republic Univer…: Books, Articles and More. https://eds.a.ebscohost.com/eds/detail/detail?vid=2&sid=8958ac06-1457-4297-9d39-ea5bcfcb4864%40sessionmgr4008&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmUmc2NvcGU9c2l0ZQ%3d%3d#AN=124997730&db=eue. Accessed 29 Nov. 2018.

Essa Ahmed, Heba Bahjet. “Duolingo as a Bilingual Learning App: a Case Study.” Arab World English Journal, Vol. 7 no. 2, June 2016, pp. 255-267, https://ezproxy.stevenson.edu/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eue&AN=116912698&site=eds-live&scope=site

DeWaard, Lisa. “Is Rosetta Stone a Viable Option for Second-Language Learning?” ADFL Bulletin, vol. 42, no. 2, 2013, pp. 61-72, https://ezproxy.stevenson.edu/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mzh&AN=2013651579&site=ehost-live

MLA Convention Statistics. Modern Language Association. https://www.mla.org/Convention/Convention-History/MLA-Convention-Statistics. Accessed Dec. 5, 2018.

About the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages. American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages. https://www.actfl.org/about-the-american-council-the-teaching-foreign-languages. Accessed Dec. 5, 2018.

Byerly, Alison. “Are We There Yet? Virtual Travel and Victorian Realism. U of Michigan P, 2012, https://ezproxy.stevenson.edu/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mzh&AN=2014306920&site=ehost-live

N.A. Aziz et al. “Modelling and optimisation of upgradability in the design of multiple life cycle products: a critical review.” Journal of Cleaner Production, Vol. 112 Part 1, January 2016, pp. 282-290, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959652615011671

Stephen J. Cowley, Rasmus Gahrn-Andersen. “Simplexity, languages and human languaging.” Language Sciences, Vol. 71, January 2019, pp. 4-7, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0388000118301360

Presentation Link: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1sK9t91oMNtJiWm7QoUBWPPOXs-QWbtuPvfbCTqdaLwY/edit?usp=sharing

 

Victor’s Anatomy

Everyday we all make choices and whether we know it those choices impact everybody around us; one of the most valuable lessons to learn in life is your actions have consequences. In Victor’s Anatomy students will be immersed in a VR game where they will have to make empathetic or nonempathetic choices. When the game begins Nurse Amber is finishing her shift at the labor and delivery unit of a hospital and packing her things to leave. Heading out to her car she is stopped by a man who beings to ask her questions of life and creation, suddenly everything goes black and Amber wakes in a laboratory with the man. He reveals to her that he is Dr. Frankenstein and he wishes to create new life. He tells her she must use her abilities as a nurse to help him or she will die. Then the game transfers to the students control where they must try to help create this monster but prevent it from turning evil like its creator.

I was inspired by both Greys Anatomy and Frankenstein in this concept for I want students to also get a better understanding of human anatomy while learning about empathy. These will both be measured by questions about empathy and anatomy before and after the game is played. To follow up questions after the game students will be asked to write a personal refection to observe how it possible affected them in their personal lives. If time permits, I would also like to do a follow up refection a month later to see if their views on life or empathy have changed. It can be used in classrooms for students ages 15-24.

This game is to be submitted to be part of Teaching Tolerance, an organization for teachers dedicated to teaching students about bullying, acceptance and tolerance. They allow teachers to build learning plans for teaching students about empathy and this game could act as an addition to that.

Citations:

“Showing Empathy.” Teaching Tolerance, www.tolerance.org/classroom-resources/tolerance-lessons/showing-empathy.

Evoking Empathy Abstract

Empathy is something that we learn over time with every choice we make. People often make empathetic responses to each other online, but some say that empathy has been declining in young people since we started using technology-based communication. Technology can also be what inspires empathy within young people. There was a study where over a thousand young adults were provided with a questionnaire that provided them with questions that asked about their daily use of media, real-world empathy, virtual empathy, social support, and demographic information. The results had shown that people ended up spending more face-to-face time due to virtual technology. Virtual has been often to teach empathy within young people. There are many Virtual Reality applications that evoke empathy within young people.

For example, Jeremy Bailenson and his team ran a research project called “Empathy at Scale” that explored ways to design, test, and distribute virtual reality projects that help to teach empathy. The project put people in the perspectives of who the subjects were to better empathize with. The results were astonishing. Subjects who were viewing the perspective of a color-blind person were found to be twice as likely to help a color-blind person in real life.

Another example would be when the film producer Chris Milk had worked with the United Nations to create a virtual reality film called Clouds Over Sidra. In the film, you are inside a Syrian refugee camp and you will be shadowing the life of a 12-year-old girl named Sidra. She had been living there for over 18 months along with thousands of other refugees. While wearing the Oculus Rift, those watching the movies able to look around see children staring back at them. This made for a more empathetic experience.

I would like to create a choice-based adventure game. You are put into a virtual world where you can interact with objects and people. Soon you will be struck with radioactive lightning that changes your outward appearance to be disfigured and hideous. You will have to live out your life looking like a deformed monster. You will be given dialogue options and what you choose will determine how people will perceive you, a human or a monster.

 

Sources:

Carrier, Mark. “Virtual Empathy: Positive and Negative Impacts of Going Online upon Empathy in Young Adults.” NeuroImage, Academic Press, 10 June 2015, www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0747563215003970

Alsever, Jennifer. “Is Virtual Reality the Ultimate Empathy Machine?” Wired, Conde Nast, 10 Nov. 2015, www.wired.com/brandlab/2015/11/is-virtual-reality-the-ultimate-empathy-machine/.

Frankenstein VR Abstract

As a child, I was captivated by a book series commonly referred to as “Choose Your Own Adventure” books. I read and reread these stories trying to uncover each of the unique endings, or at least as many as I could. I would spend hours living the same adventure over and over, seeing how I could make it differ. The VR experience I would like to implement capitalizes on this interest in discovering the unknown based on one’s reactions in certain situations, or moral crises. While I spent hours pouring over old books, the new generation of students have the ability to become that much more captivated by a story that has lasted over 200 years- Frankenstein.

 

Frankenstein is a perfect avenue to teach empathy especially when combined with the mechanics of a Choose Your Own Adventure story. It calls into question the actions of the user, and can be programed to trigger more empathetic responses. By rewarding empathy at a young age, we can bring up a generation that is more caring to their neighbors. Virtual reality is often coined “the ultimate empathy machine” and will be the best avenue to bring a VR experience based on a timeless book to life (Herrera, Bailenson, Weisz, Ogle, & Zaki 2018).

 

Frankenstein VR is a completely immersive Virtual Reality application that allows the user to make choices based on their own empathetic levels. With continued use past the VR headset, and with the development of a user friendly smartphone app, Frankenstein VR can easily transcend and persist in our society. By making the app an engaging and unique experience with a whole cast of characters right out of everyone’s favorite Gothic novels, empathy can be taught to everyone in society with smartphone access, and therefore become a forethought in our daily lives.

 

 

Citations:

 

Herrera, Fernanda, et al. “Building Long-Term Empathy: A Large-Scale Comparison of Traditional and Virtual Reality Perspective-Taking.” Plos One, vol. 13, no. 10, 2018, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0204494.

Empathy via VR

Empathy is best taught by putting someone in another person’s shoes, as the saying goes.  From an outside perspective, we can still see an unfortunate circumstance and feel for it and the people involved; however, truly experiencing an event and living through it first hand is something else entirely. Virtual Reality has the unique ability to replicate this. 

Education is my primary goal for this endeavor. This will most likely be used in classrooms in an effort to teach empathy and expand perspective. Speaking of which, in class the other day, we were among refugees struggling to survive. We also experienced what it was like to lose our vision, our sense of sight. This was far more powerful than watching the news, or reading the story of a blind man. I want to do something similar with The Creature from Frankenstein.

I want to share the experience of what it would be like to go through life with impairments, as well as a unique appearance. I want to understand what “a day in the life” is like for someone bound to a wheelchair. I want to see what struggles they face and how they are treated by common people.

This was inspired by, of course, Frankenstein, as well as the accessibility assessment from earlier in the semester. I believe that experiencing this life first hand will allow the average, able-bodied person to have a greater respect towards and empathize with someone who gets around in a wheelchair. VR is an excellent medium for this venture. Some details I’ve thought of: VR user should be seated, as if they were bound to a wheelchair; character/model should be fully clothed in unisex attire, if possible, for maximum immersion for the user; as an “on rails” VR experience, there should be less motion sickness in inexperienced VR users, or those who simply struggle with virtual reality.

 

Destination Forge

In the prompt of creating a virtual experience based off of Frankenstein, and an idea that teaches empathy, I formed the idea “Destination Forge”. Destination Forge is an educational, pro-social, adventure-strategy Virtual Reality (VR) experience that combines the story of Frankenstein and the importance of empathy, with a personalized experience of finding one’s true identity.

In the beginning of the experience, participants will have the option to customize their character and decide their occupation, character traits, and voice. Throughout the experience, the participants will be required to complete quests, and based on their responses to various NPC’s and approaches to each quest, a clone of their character will start to form. Based on the amount of empathetic choices a participant makes at the end of formation, their character and it’s clone will either merge to form a powerful mega-human, which will go on to complete quests that encourage empathy, or ultimately will be cursed forever, unless a journey to the “Mirror of Empathy” is made to renew themselves.

The character options will be limited, because the purpose of the game is more important than the number of hair styles available. The body of the characters will be close to the models used in SecondLife, or the role-play game IMVU. Voice acting will also be limited, but occupations will vary.

The target audience for this virtual reality experience is middle and high-school students, based on the understanding of empathy that is required to participate in the virtual experience. The purpose of Destination Forge is to teach students empathy and ultimately believe that empathy is a super-human ability. In a study conducted by Christine M. Bachen et al., pro-social games have been found to “increase empathy and decrease schadenfreude, or pleasure taken at another’s misfortunes.” (Bachen).

The environment for this virtual experience can be chosen: the city, the country, or the work place. Donghee Shin concludes that “stimulated empathy in VR can increase a user’s overall empathy and the perception that a virtual environment is realistic” (Shin). In Destination Forge, the environments and quests are realistic, which will ultimately lead to a more effective impact on a participants life, and level of empathy.

Bachen, M. Christine et al. “How do presence, flow, and character identification affect players’ empathy and interest in learning from a serious computer game?”  Computers in Human Behavior, Nov. 2016, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S074756321630471X

Shin, Donghee. “Empathy and embodied experience in virtual environment: To what extent can virtual reality stimulate empathy and embodied experience?” Computers in Human Behavior, Jan. 2018, ezproxy.stevenson.edu:2090/science/article/pii/S0747563217305381

A Day in the Life of a Superhero

A Day in the Life of a Superhero is an educational VR experience meant for children ages 4-10. The goal of the VR game is to teach kids the meaning of empathy at a younger age through the eyes of a superhero, hopefully carrying the message into their daily lives.

To begin this project, I thought about when I was a child and had fictional superhero characters that I looked up to. This got me thinking about heroes that are well recognized but are also outcasted by their citizens, such as Batman, the Hulk or the Incredibles. Batman is a wanted fugitive by the police yet he never kills anyone and only beats-up bad guys. The Hulk is a big, green monster that uncontrollably destroys everything in his wake, and nobody wants him around for it. The Incredibles, at one time, were outlawed if they revealed they had super powers.

After discovering this common theme of the hated superhero, I researched two studies conducted by psychologist Rachel White and other researchers from Stanford University. Their studies were conducted on numerous children roughly between ages 4-10. They had some of the kids dress-up as a superhero while others did not dress-up at all. All of the kids were asked to do long, basic tasks on a computer, allowing them to take as many breaks as they wanted. The studies found that after completing the tasks, the kids who dressed-up were more empathetic towards the researchers than the kids who did not dress-up. Furthermore, the kids in costume completed the computer tasks at a faster rate than the other kids not in costume.

A Day in the Life of a Superhero will attempt to reach young children and bring out more empathy. The players will step into the VR world, modern-day NYC, and will come across a robbery taking place in a tech-store. The players will have to stop the thief. After defeating the thief, the tech-store owner is ungrateful for your help as the player has just destroyed an android prototype that the store was testing as a security system.

Kids are more inclined to empathize with the superhero more-so than the citizens, yet after destroying the tech-store’s property they might feel sorry for what they did. The message A Day in the Life of a Superhero is trying to get across to these kids is if you want to be a superhero and help others, you have to understand how others feel first.

 

Jarrett, Christian. “Pretending to Be Batman.” The Psychologist, Dec. 2017, web.a.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail/detail?vid=4&sid=e1f67a23-0b18-4775-8b2f-163db16f8b8a%40sdc-v-sessmgr04&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#AN=126448371&db=a9h.

Tucker, Patrick. “Virtual Empathy.” Futurist, June 2013, web.a.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail/detail?vid=5&sid=e1f67a23-0b18-4775-8b2f-163db16f8b8a%40sdc-v-sessmgr04&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=a9h&AN=86889461&anchor=toc.

“In His Undead Shoes” pitch

“In his undead shoes” will be a Virtual Reality cinematic experience that makes the viewer see the world as the creature from the novel “Frankenstein” and go through some key moments of his life.

 

I would want to use this app to engage people aren’t really into Frankenstein or weren’t really captured by Frankenstein upon the first read. I would like to capture that audience to get them to reevaluate the novel and reframe their view of the novel into the perspective of the creature. Since this will be told through a different medium than the novel, it will hopefully appeal to a different audience than the book while still getting some of the themes across.

 

This app will use a first person perspective and place the viewer in the shoes of the creature created by Frankenstein. It will include key moments like his birth and rejection from his creator, his learning and observation of society and his exile. We will frame and shoot this in a way where it’s not explicitly known that you are Frankenstein’s monster or that this is the Frankenstein story until the end. When you are exiled, you will find your creator again and he’ll mention that you are an undead abomination he created, wholey unnatural. Then the title will appear “In his undead shoes”.

 

The whole point of this is to show someone what happens when society rejects you for something you can’t control and how that lack of empathy can shape you. This relies on how Mary Shelley breaks down the fact that “sympathy” is deeply rooted in seeing and visual appeal, and that when a harsh “ugliness” is introduced, society will no longer sympathize (Sympathy, Seeing and Affective Labor, Kyung Sook). Once they experience all the things that the creature experienced, that should hopefully give the audience a more clear link to the creature. We can then open a discussion about the experience, ask how it left people feeling and then reflect on some of the actions of the creature. Open ended questions can be asked like “Why did the creature constantly ask Frankenstein for a wife” and “Why did the creature kill Elizabeth?”. After reflecting on these questions, we can open a discussion about how to prevent something like this or how things like this happen in reality on a smaller, more grounded scale.

Kyung Sook, Shin. Sympathy, Seeing, and Affective Labor: Mary Shelley’s (Re-)Reading of Adam Smith in Frankenstein. 2012, http://www.kci.go.kr/kciportal/landing/article.kci?arti_id=ART001680132.

VR Empathy: Inspired by Frankenstein

Using inspiration from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein in order to develop a empathy evoking virtual reality (VR) program, I have an idea for a VR cinematic experience that puts the user into a world with no explanation. Once in the world they are exposed to a variety of things. The things have not been defined yet, but their intention is to start giving the viewer something to start constructing the world around them. Maybe characters get introduced who start feeding dialogue, or present documents. Maybe some sort of light is turned on, or some sound is heard in the environment. What is presented to the viewer does not immediately answer their questions or concerns, but rather continues to make them ask more questions.

The experience can be used as a method to immerse people into the experiences, and have them feel some sort of connection that evokes empathy. The inspiration from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein for this comes from the story that the creature tells about his experiences in society (Shelley, pages 75 – 103). In that story the creature spends a lot of time observing and learning about De Lacey’s family. The creature observes the family from a nearby cottage, and in its observations it learns that the family is discriminated against similarly to its on discrimination. It connects with them, and is able to empathize with them without ever actually experiencing empathy towards itself from other humans. That’s an interesting idea to explore within our society and the people who are members of it in 2018. I like the idea of letting a VR user connect dots for themselves, and learn the environment, the subjects, or the character they are embodying. 

I am drawing a lot of  inspiration from the news stories that the New York Times is using VR for. I believe that is a wonderful use of VR, and a great way to evoke empathy in an audience that has never been exposed to the content they are being immersed to due to VR. I do not have a set scenario to explore yet, but like the New York Times VR experience “The Displaced”, there are a number of stories that need to be told from our fellow humans. I’ve mentioned refugees, but I believe this could be applicable to inner city communities ravaged by gun violence, school communities where the funding is really poor, or areas of the world that have been ravaged by pollution.

Link to Pitch Presentation: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1UnaDJ67thyuiPyqLmRYvrQfKMMxtah4ByXl_wyEZaQg/edit?usp=sharing

Huck, Jonny, et al. “Designing for Empathy in a Church Community.” Proceedings of the 18th International Academic MindTrek Conference: Media Business, Management, Content & Services, ACM, 2014, pp. 249–251. ACM Digital Library, doi:10.1145/2676467.2676497.
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. New York, Pearson Longman, 2007.
Shin, Donghee. “Empathy and Embodied Experience in Virtual Environment: To What Extent Can Virtual Reality Stimulate Empathy and Embodied Experience?” Computers in Human Behavior, vol. 78, Jan. 2018, pp. 64–73. ScienceDirect, doi:10.1016/j.chb.2017.09.012.
Silverstein, Jake. “The Displaced: Introduction.” The New York Times, 5 Nov. 2015. NYTimes.com, https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/08/magazine/the-displaced-introduction.html.

 

 

The Amazing Odyssey

I believe in the power of empathy to positively transform the teacher and student experience in the classroom. If you’ve been in a school for any length of time, you know that whether you’ve asked for it or not, you’re bound to encounter anything. For example, everyday teachers and students are facing difficult/ complex situations in school – questions about belonging and forgiving, advantage and ability, and conflict and acceptance. These are all themes we can find in Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. According to Baker et al., “some elementary school children face constant threats to their academic, social, and emotional growth and development. Equally, in meeting the goal of educating and nourishing the whole child. many schools face threats from unacceptably high rates of school violence, bullying, school dropout, youth suicide and other negative behaviors and psychological health” (209).

The purpose of my game is to teach students the story and themes of the novel, Frankenstein. After the students finish playing “The Amazing Odyssey”, they will gain an understanding of the story and themes of Frankenstein, they will learn more about empathy, and in the end, students will learn why the creature was such an empathetic character. The tagline for this game is #buildempathy. “The Amazing Odyssey” is supposed to be a 10 – week designed journey using the Oculus Rift. Win Smith claims that  “Integrating the VR experiences with lesson plans could have huge benefits for kids who might not typically retain information from a textbook” (Babcock, Stephen. “This edtech startup is bringing virtual reality to the classroom.”  https://technical.ly/baltimore/2015/05/29/alchemy-learning-virtual-reality-classroom-oculus/) 

Using the concept of The Amazing Race TV show, the students will have a chance to become the creature and will be given clues that will lead to a scene or narrative passage in the novel, Frankenstein. Where the player has to complete a task with a character from the book that explores, promotes, or endorses empathy among themselves and the other characters in Frankenstein. According to Cheok et al., “Storytelling is an effective and important educational mean for children. With the augmented reality (AR) technology, storytelling becomes more and more interactive and intuitive in the sense of human computer interactions” (22). One particular theme I found that students can learn from “The Amazing Odyssey” is the unlikely friendships in Frankenstein. For example, in the 1931 Frankenstein film, where the creature meets a young girl. Although a little afraid, she accepts him and plays games with him. After they throw all the petals from a flower into the lake, he looks around for something else to throw. He picks her up and throws her in. In my VR game, this scene can be recreated with the creature and the little girl also having an unlikely friendship, but with him learning how to be a gentle friend.

One cool thing about this game is that ”the creature” will be able to collect books each time the player and character accomplishes a task. The more books the creature collects, the more he learns about his human nature. So, in the end, the students should have an empathic creature. Also, the more books you earn, the more levels up you go which creates a cool gaming aspect for the students. I have not found a virtual reality game like this. This game is for fifth grade – twelfth grade. Principals will definitely purchase this game for his/her teachers.

Baker, Jason, et al. “Teaching Social Skills in a Virtual Environment: An Exploratory Study.” THE JOURNAL FOR SPECIALISTS IN GROUP WORK, Vol. 34, No. 3, Sept. 2009, pp. 209-226 https://ezproxy.stevenson.edu:2101/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=7&sid=6dcb2500-927a-4261-9933-59ce08a3b58d%40sessionmgr104

Cheok, David Adrian, et al. “Virtual reality and mixed reality for virtual learning environments.” Computers & Graphics 30 (2006) pp. 20-28 https://ezproxy.stevenson.edu:2106/S0097849305002025/1-s2.0-S0097849305002025-main.pdf?_tid=e1b51003-a517-48ce-911a-6b8a7ef8c5ef&acdnat=1542724968_d5eea48f1db6bb365e924cb5a4500301

Stephen Babcock. “This edtech startup is bringing virtual reality to the classroom.” Technical.ly. May 29, 2015. https://technical.ly/baltimore/2015/05/29/alchemy-learning-virtual-reality-classroom-oculus/