USC wants virtual reality in the classroom

USC’s Center for Teaching Excellence is offering a Virtual Environments training camp

The Center for Teaching Excellence at the University of South Carolina will hold a week-long hands-on Virtual Environments “boot camp” for faculty, staff, and students June 25-29.

The camp will focus on using virtual reality, augmented reality and 360-degree video as tools in a classroom.

“The goal of the entire week is to give faculty tools they can use in teaching,” said Augie Grant, who is director of the Center for Teaching Excellence and saw the need for the technology in the classroom.

And he’s not alone.

In recent months, Palmetto Health Children’s Hospital received 100 virtual reality glasses from a donor to help children “escape” frightening or painful procedures during their hospitalizations.

Ernie Yarborouth, a hospital volunteer, sees the good of the technology every day.

“All [the kids] can think about is the needle and what’s being done, but the minute they put the VR stuff on it takes it away,” he said.

To use the glasses, patients insert their cell phones, connect them to YouTube, put on the glasses and get a view of wherever they would like to go.

Grant said virtual reality is a great way to take the limits off of a diagnosis.

“The experiences you can give people with 360-degree video or virtual reality are important,” he said. “Consider, especially, children who are mobility-impaired. When you think that you are limited to where a wheelchair can take you” the world seems limited, he said. “But if you’re able to put on an HMD (head mounted display), then you can go anywhere in the world and communicate with anyone in the world.”

For more information about the Virtual Environments camp at USC, visit sc.edu/about/offices_and_divisions/cte/about/news/2018/vr_bootcamp.php.