Summary:
Aaron Walsh is interviewed about Immersive Education, video game addiction and other stuff. He talks about what he did back in the 90's getting started with in the VR scene. Walsh has coined the phrase "immersive illness" is sure to be a catch phrase and house hold term within the next generation. Mentioning that, while we already deal with "addiction, alienation, mental schisms, and more", with "insanely realistic" virtual reality people are bound to get sucked in even more than they did in the 90's or today because for some reason it will be different, even though it's always been the same. People get addicted. They did in the past, they do now and they will in the future. It is not about the technology it's about the psychology. But Walsh is pretty sure "We're in for a very rough ride."
The advantaged of online classes are also discussed along with the disadvantages. Commuting is a hell of a lot easier to your computer than to campus (even if you live on campus). The shy folks don't have to worry about actual human interaction and can semi-anonymously speak their VoIP voices. A lot of the early problems are non-issues these days with connection speeds and home computer equipment generally being up to snuff with the demands of his classes. The only other issue mentioned was the ability to actually get his virtual classes to be virtual classes. It was too hard to try to incorporate all the learning material into the virtual world so the compromise was to use mixed media and go from Second Life (or Rocket World) to a browser then off to Wow and back to the browser. This makes sense though. You can't teach a class on gaming from within a game and play another game in side the first game.
Walsh got a student voted award within BC for pimping Immersive Education and is very excited about the future prospects. Only "barely crawling", the technology has a long way to go. I don't know how it will work out and if it will ever fully meet Walsh's expectations. Statements like the following cast doubt for me:" Immersive Education is designed to immerse and engage students in the same way that today's best video games grab and keep the attention of players." Immersive (or any other) Education will never be able to compete with gaming in that way. What draws people to games has never and will never be the same for a draw to an educational tool. No matter how cool the tool. There need to be other reasons the students want to use the tool. Like: Purpose, Function, Application.
Anyway, cool little interview. Raised a couple question.
Me Being Immersed:
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