Remote Learning on Steroids

The pandemic hits, and everyone transitions to remote learning aka Zoom, but not for my Storytelling with Emerging Technologies class. Nope, we get Oculus headsets and use a virtual conference room for our classes. Was it cool? Absolutely! It was also weird but somewhat appropriate since we had been learning about these types of technologies. Our instructor, Steven King, decided to take advantage of the opportunity and brought us all together in a virtual world provided by AltspaceVR. Once you get the hang of the controls and have a chance to wander around through the different virtual spaces, the novelty wears off and it's back to business as usual. Although I have to admit that 45 minutes in a headset is about the most any of us could take. At that point the nausea starts to increases and battery power on the headsets starts to decrease.

Regardless, spending the last few classes of the semester in a virtual world was intriguing and familiar. There's still the initial chatter before class gets underway, and some students got creative as they customized their avatar's look and clothes. I think the hardest part was getting "teleported" into class. Sometimes you ended up standing on a table or stuck on the other side of the conference room window, suspended in mid-air. I'll always appreciate Steven's willingness to jump in and try something new, along with his patience and enthusiasm tempered some of stress as we entered lockdown and allowed our semester to end a little bit of a higher note.

This video was featured on the ABC News Special "Pandemic: What You Need to Know".