Virtual Reality (VR) will be the center of the next wave of technology. Imagine if, during this COVID epidemic, students were able to put on headsets and immerse themselves in a virtual classroom. IVE's goal is to create a VR classroom featuring avatar teachers and digital classmates in an immersive interactive environment.
Studies show that a student’s academic performance improves with eye gaze (the amount of time the teacher makes eye contact with the student). If a person is in a class lecture with a hundred students, each one would get one percent eye gaze on average. The eye gaze increases to approximately three percent with a class of thirty. When teacher-to-student eye gaze is increased to 15%-20%, studies show improvements in student’s grades. With VR software, eye gaze can be tweaked to 20%, 50%, or even 100%, regardless of class size.
Research indicates that students are more receptive to teachers who look like them. For example, if the image of a teacher avatar is tweaked to look like the student at a 50% ratio (looks half like the student, half like the teacher); a student’s performance is impacted positively. Avatars, eye-gaze, and speech patterns are all parameters that can be tweaked to provide beneficial academic impacts.
VR education has the ability to be applied to various instructional models including home learning, special education, and alternative schooling. The ultimate goal of IVE is to bring virtual classrooms into existing school institutions impacted by poverty in the inner city, offer alternative learning models for disadvantaged youth, and guide underserved young adults into technological careers.