Coming Soon

Sometimes we see some VR developments coming up the road, capable companies “waiting in the wings” for better publicity. Here are a few:

Silas. Silas(Socially Interactive Learning Avatar Software) is an avatar-based animation software for teaching Social Skills. It lets students learn and practice social skills by creating their own animated movies on their computer. For Silas, viewing student-created VR is coming soon.

The Beamer. The Beamer has created the Stardust Mystery Game. VR is on the way for this creative learning experience.  In the game, students are sent back in time with three friends friends to find the source for your inherited stardust (atoms). In this simulation, soon to be made VR-ready, a team takes photos, collects samples, and explores the surroundings in search of their atomistic origins. That’s the way VR should be employed—not merely field trips—but in an experiential way.

Parrott Education. A UAV (drones) company, Parrott is showing their tablet-VR-drone interwoven solution, hoping for some audience appreciation.

VR: Back to School

VRCA.  “Virtual Reality Coding Academy: Teach Your Students to Code” is offering a four-course VR coding curriculum to middle and high school students, tapping into the potent coding meme so popular these days. By the way, VRCA is part of EYEQXL, a company with considerable VR heft, and I presume a contender soon to expand in a greater way into the public eye. 

ViziTech Takes Aim

Vizitech USA has been in the 3D and VR space for some time, but here's a heads up. Their strong suit, mostly ignored by other VR sluggers, is to bring the world of visualization to vocational education or career-technical education (CTE) as we call it in the States. It’s a smart move: the current U.S. administration has just begun a renewed push for both pre- and post-high school vocational education. See their website.

Advice to the VR Industry

Here's some advice for the burgeoning VR industry. These suggestions are for the hardware, content, and integration people alike, notions that will help you effectively reach and scale in the K-12 and university market place:

• improve the digital quality and feel of your VR graphics; 
• employ more favorable pricing for cash-strapped schools, small-sized schools, and rural schools;
• realign your volume purchase schedules to create greater incentive to buy (currently many pricing schedules unkowingly disincentivize customer purchase);
• offer a straight-out purchase solution (as opposed to annual pricing structures, which are distasteful, painful, and unsustainable to most schools).

Many great VR products develop minimal sales traction when they unkowingly pursue a pathway toward pricing failure. Just saying.

Being Veative

 Singapore is in the house. That’s right, Veative, a virtual reality company headquartered in Singapore with offices in India, USA, UAE, and Egypt, has hit the VR market with notable fanfare. Veative is a joint effort by two respected digital learning organizations – Piron Corporation and Almotahida Education Group – in a new and growing partnership that advances 3-D, VR, AR and MR in learning.

Veative (apparently a portmanteau combining “virtual reality” and “creative”) brings to the table a number of ‘differentiators’ when compared with other players in the ed market:

• Veative offers interactive VR modules that include 3D models (learning objects, we call them), 360 videos, simple and complex simulations, as well as accompanying assessments.
• They offer both Internet and local (offline) delivery options (students and teachers can choose to download VR content from the online store or from a local [offline] content access point.) 
• Veative features greater interactivity than their competitors, integrating the use of handheld controllers throughout their content for interactivity purposes. 
• They offer a free creative VR learning app, more than 50 free lessons for schools, and some wonderful virtual labs and simulations, which are especially valuable for online learning programs. Veative’s VR modules are now available for Middle School Math and Science, and High School Biology, Chemistry, Physics and Mathematics. All lessons are currently available in multiple languages, as well.
• Veative offers a complete ecosystem of surrounding value, including a comprehensive VR curriculum, mapped to the curriculum; VR Learn, a content delivery app for students (students can organize existing VR modules and add new ones in their own library); a teacher tablet with a management control app  (teachers can control student screens or can install/uninstall and launch VR modules remotely on student devices.)
• They also offer VR headgear options, a wireless classroom router. a lockable/rollable charging/storage unit (called a ‘trolley’), reporting and analytics features, LMS integration, and insructional support (an in-house team of education experts available for advice and lesson/module design).

Ankur Aggarwal, CEO of Veative, reasons: “Content is a key pain point for adoption of VR.” He predicts: “We look forward to extending our 400+ apps in STEM to breadth across new content areas, including coding, language learning, and apps that are cross-curricular.”