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The most amazing thing about virtual reality isn't necessarily the technology behind it, but the way it makes us feel. When you bring virtual reality learning into classrooms, that feeling matters more than ever. Stanford University's Jeremy Bailenson explains how well-designed VR programs like EcoMUVE and River City boost kids' intellectual confidence and show students who think they're not "science-minded" just how capable they truly are. That's a wonderful thing. So why don't we just teach every subject in VR? Gains in learning aren't that automatic across all subjects, says Bailenson. "You shouldn't use VR for everything. There are a lot of things that work beautifully by the written word and by video, and you shouldn't just shove everything into [VR] goggles needlessly." What propels deeper learning is finding the right fit for immersive learning, beyond the surface novelty. Jeremy Bailenson is the author of Experience on Demand: What Virtual Reality Is, How It Works, and What It Can Do.

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JEREMY BAILENSON

Jeremy Bailenson is founding director of Stanford University’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab, Thomas More Storke Professor in the Department of Communication, Professor (by courtesy) of Education, Professor (by courtesy) Program in Symbolic Systems, a Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment, and a Faculty Leader at Stanford’s Center for Longevity. He earned a B.A. cum laude from the University of Michigan in 1994 and a Ph.D. in cognitive psychology from Northwestern University in 1999. He spent four years at the University of California, Santa Barbara as a Post-Doctoral Fellow and then an Assistant Research Professor.

Bailenson studies the psychology of Virtual Reality (VR), in particular how virtual experiences lead to changes in perceptions of self and others. His lab builds and studies systems that allow people to meet in virtual space, and explores the changes in the nature of social interaction. His most recent research focuses on how VR can transform education, environmental conservation, empathy, and health.

Bailenson consults pro bono on VR policy for government agencies including the State Department, the US Senate, Congress, the California Supreme Court, the Federal Communication Committee, the U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force, the Department of Defense, the Department of Energy, the National Research Council, and the National Institutes of Health. His book Infinite Reality, co-authored with Jim Blascovich, was quoted by the U.S. Supreme Court outlining the effects of immersive media.

He has written opinion pieces for The Washington Post, PBS NewsHour, National Geographic, Slate, The San Francisco Chronicle, and The Chronicle of Higher Education, and has produced three VR documentary experiences which were official selections at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2016 and 2017. His new book, Experience on Demand: What Virtual Reality Is, How It Works, and What It Can Do is out now.

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TRANSCRIPT:

Jeremy Bailenson: The gold standard for VR in education is a gentleman named Chris Dede. He's a professor at Harvard and he doesn't do goggles-based VR, he does desktop VR—although he's moving toward goggle VR. And what Chris has built is two amazing experiences: one is called EcoMUVE and one called River City. His virtual learning scenarios are organic; you're moving an avatar around and you talk to other avatars, you get to run experiments and the science content responds to what you do. It's engaging and you can play it for a long time. It's a very detailed environment to learn in. He's put it in thousands of schools, hundreds of thousands of students have used this and he's got great data showing that it works. In particular what Chris and his colleagues have shown is that students who typically have a hard time doing well in science—for example, someone who says, 'I can't be a scientist. That's not what I do,' whether it's due to your race or your gender or for whatever reason you can't see yourself as a scientist—when you're in River City you have an avatar; you're a scientist, and you're doing science and it helps those who have a hard time imagining that they can do science. And he's got great data showing that those who struggle typically with science, River City and EcoMUVE typically help them.

The challenge now is when you go from that type of amazing learning content to putting the v...

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