Virtual Reality in the Classroom

Are the days of students sitting at little desks, listening to lectures, reading from textbooks covered with scribbled-on paper book covers, and doing assignments with pens and paper gone forever? Maybe not yet, but we certainly seem to be moving in that direction! Educators and curriculum developers are finding more and more ways to pass information onto today's technology-savvy kids!

For instance, several years ago, Lightspan Inc introduced a line of educational video games that could be played at home by children on their Sony Playstations! The games mimic traditional video games, with a

In participating schools, each student receives a Sony Playstation console for the year, along with the games he will need. But its not all fun and games! Before they can get the Playstations, parents have to sign agreements saying they'll monitor their students' use of the consoles, and work with their students. And, back at school, kids still have to take tests to make sure they're learning what they need to learn!

The benefits of the Lightspan games are that they keep the children's attention, and encourage the children to play the same games over and over again, getting better and better as the information is repeated. This repetition seems to help kids retain the information, more than doing a worksheet or other assignment just once and then turning it in!

Another benefit of the games is that parents are encouraged to play the games along with their kids, or on their own. For parents with limited English or lack of education, this gives them a chance to brush up on their own skills!

Lightspan, Inc, has since merged with Plato Learning, a company that provides educational computer games for use in schools and homes.

Other curriculum developing companies are catching onto the trend as well! Textbook company Scott Foresman-Addison Wesley has come out with a product called enVisionMath for students in kindergarten through sixth grade. Each online lesson has three components... an animation about the lesson, an interactive digital story for students to click through, and an interactive chance for students to solve a problem themselves. Although not as splashy, the computer games keep the students' attention and require them to interact with the lesson.

Believe it or not, some schools seem to be eliminating the regular classroom setting altogether! In Chicago, one school, the Chicago Virtual Charter School, conducts all of it's lessons online! The kindergarten through ninth grade students move through the lessons at their own pace, with the help of a certified teacher who they'll never meet in person. This is actually part of the Chicago Public School system, and is tuition-free for children who live in Chicago!

Many private virtual schools have cropped up as well, as an alternative for parents who want their children to be home schooled but aren't ready to tackle creating their own curriculum and doing their own teaching! The virtual lessons often include a pretest, cartoonish lesson for the student to click through, a game, and a post-test. Many also include offline activities for students to do. For instance, a student may be instructed to take a walk outside and look for different kinds of insects or plants. These completely virtual schools are often used not only by families who strictly want to home school their kids, but also by families who have found that their students don't do well in traditional schools. For instance, some kids with ADHD or different varieties of autism do better learning at their own pace, via computer games! Its obvious that video games and Internet-based lessons do help many kids learn academic skills. But can students then go out into the real world and apply what they've learned? If they can, perhaps video games and computers really will replace classrooms and teachers, someday!