Tag: Education

Editorial: Why Am I Buying a Meta Quest 2 Wireless VR Headset—After Swearing I Would Boycott Meta Hardware and Software Forever?

I will soon be the owner of a shiny new Meta Quest 2, as shown here in this screen capture from the Meta website

Longtime readers of this blog will know that I have, over the years, developed a well-founded aversion to Meta (the company formerly known as Facebook), its business practices based on surveillance capitalism, and its products and services.

For me, the final straw was when then-Facebook-now-Meta did an about-face, and insisted that users of its then-Oculus-now-Meta virtual reality hardware had to set up accounts on the Facebook social network in order to use the devices (more on that in a moment). I angrily responded by giving away my Oculus Quest 1 to my brother’s family, and upgrading my trusty Oculus Rift to a Valve Index headset using SteamVR. I was DONE with Meta, and I was willing to vote with my feet (and my wallet).

So, it might come as a surprise to some people, to learn that I have decided to purchase a shiny new Meta Quest 2 wireless virtual reality headset. Why did I do this? Several points, which I will take one at a time.

Well, first and foremost, Meta blinked and backtracked after much criticism; you no longer need to set up a Facebook account to use the Meta Quest 2 (although you still have the option to link your Facebook or Instagram account to your Meta account, if you so wish). Instead, you set up a new Meta account for your device, as explained in the following YouTube video from six months ago:

It is now possible to have up to four Meta accounts per device, with one as an admin account, and you will be able to share some (not all, some) apps between Meta accounts using a new app-sharing feature. Note that Meta is still dragging its feet in setting up systems for use in business and academic circles; its “Meta Quest for Business” program is still in beta test with a (U.S. only) waiting list, a rather mystifying decision given the push Meta is already trying to make with Horizon Workrooms for corporate users. Then again, Meta seems to be just generally flailing (and failing) with its still-recent pivot to the metaverse, so who knows?

Second, as you may remember, I am still working on a project to set up a virtual reality lab within the University of Manitoba Libraries. While my original proposal was to purchase and install four high-end PCVR workstations using HTC Vive Pro 2 tethered headsets, we are now looking at offering faculty, staff, and students a wider variety of headsets for use in their teaching, learning, and research activities.

It’s probably not wise to purchase only one kind of VR hardware, which leaves you vulnerable if a company decides to shut down (although this is highly unlikely in the case of both HTC and Meta!). Best not to put all our eggs into one basket; life tends to throw all kinds of unexpected curveballs at you!

One unintended consequence of the coronavirus pandemic is that I had several successive years’ worth of travel and expense funds carried over and built up, some of which had to be spent by a certain deadline, or I would lose the money. So part of that funding went towards a brand-new work PC with a good graphics card, and an HTC Vive Pro 2 Office Kit, which of course is one of the models we are looking at purchasing for the virtual reality lab. However, I still had some money left over that I had to spend soon, and I decided to also buy a Meta Quest 2 as another testing unit, since we are considering also using that device in the virtual reality lab.

Third: while hunting around for easy-to-use, introductory demonstrations of virtual reality for those coworkers who have never experienced VR before, like Felix & Paul Studio’s excellent Introduction to Virtual Reality, I discovered to my great dismay that many apps were only available for Meta devices, and not available on SteamVR at all!

Unfortunately, some VR apps are exclusive to Meta VR headsets

In other words, some of the programs which students might want to use force us to purchase headsets on which they can run. This “walled garden” approach is antithetical to setting up an academic VR lab, where ideally we should be able to run any app on any headset. However, we have little choice, given the way the marketplace is currently structured (and especially given Meta’s outsized influence, with a little under 20 million Quests of various kinds sold, which makes it by far the most popular VR headset).

The University of Manitoba’s School of Nursing recently opened the first virtual reality lab on campus, and they are only using Meta Quest 2 headsets. This lab is currently training nursing students using UbiSim software, with plans to expand its offerings over time (more info here on Mastodon). And the U of M’s Computer Science department is also planning to use Meta Quest 2s in its planned VR lab.

The VR lab at the University of Manitoba School of Nursing

In other words, you can choose not to dance with the 900-pound gorilla in the room (i.e., Meta), but it will severely limit your choice of dance partners! And that is why, despite my lingering antipathy towards Mark Zuckerberg and his company’s business practices, we will likely be buying a number of Meta Quest 2 headsets to add to our planned virtual reality laboratory at the University of Manitoba Libraries, starting with a single test unit purchased on my travel and expense funds for work.

Wish me luck; I am off on yet another adventure!

Uncommon Realities: The 16th Annual Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education (VWBPE 2023) Conference Takes Place in Second Life, March 23rd to 25th, 2023

The theme of VWBPE 2023 conference is Uncommon Realities

Once again this March, the Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education conference (VWBPE for short) will take place in Second Life, running from March 23rd to 25th, 2023. According to the EventBrite description of the conference:

This year, we celebrate Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education’s 16th Annual International Conference on Education in Virtual and Augmented Reality. The main conference takes place March 23-25, 2023, with immersive experiences happening two weeks before and after the main event.

Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education is a global grassroots community event focusing on education in immersive virtual environments. This open conference is organized by the education community to provide an opportunity to showcase the learning that takes place using virtual and augmented environments. Educators and content creators alike are encouraged to attend, present, and take part in this discussion of collaborative deeper learning and co-presence in virtual worlds and games.

To the best ability possible, VWBPE provides educational and networking opportunities that are relevant to educational curriculum development utilizing virtual environments and “best practices”.

These include

  • helping to build community through extension of learning best practices to practical application of those ideas and techniques;
  • providing networking opportunities for educators and the communities that help support education; and
  • providing access to current innovations, trends, ideas, case studies, and other best practices for educators and the communities that help support education.

Over 1,200 people from 30 countries attended our last conference in March 2022. In just the past several years, over 200 hours of video footage has been captured and has been made available free to the academic community in addition to other video broadcasts, with thousands of views.

Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education is a meaningful way for presenters to share their research and experience about the rich learning systems in virtual worlds and games. This free online conference is produced entirely by volunteers.

According to their mission statement, taken from the VWBPE website:

This open conference is organized by the Second Life community to provide an opportunity to showcase the learning that takes place using virtual worlds. Everyone is encouraged to present, attend and take part in this discussion of collaborative deeper learning and co-presence in virtual worlds and games…

Over 2,000 attendees representing 90 countries participate in 150-200 online presentations including theoretical research, application of best practices, virtual world tours, hands-on workshops, discussion panels, machinima presentations, and poster exhibits. You do not have to be a formal academic to participate.

While the VWBPE conference proceedings are apparently published as the Journal of Virtual Studies published by Rockcliffe University Consortium, my Firefox web browser threw up a security warning when I tried to access the journal’s webpage:

Indeed, Rockcliffe University Consortium (a gold-level sponsor of VWBPE, and a primary organizer of the conference) is a “university” which, as far as I am aware, exists only within the virtual world of Second Life, as opposed to an accredited, real-world university. According to their website:

Rockcliffe is a registered non-profit C-Corp in the United States, however we are not a 501(c)3. Structurally, we are organized along the lines of a B-Corp. The organization is made up completely of volunteers. The entire organization is a collection of global SOHO [small office/home office] locations tied together through a common technical infrastructure that serves as a proxy for a brick and mortar location. While the majority of our volunteers are from the United States, Rockcliffe also [has] volunteers based in Canada, the United Kingdom, France, and Australia.

While those who seek the reassurance of academic rigour and scholarly structure might turn up their noses at a self-proclaimed Second Life “university” with a glitchy journal website, I would remind you that the current organization also embraces those virtual world educators and researchers who might otherwise feel excluded from a professional, academic conference. And I can attest that I have attended some truly excellent presentations at previous VWBPE conferences over the past 15 years, such as this 2021 talk by Dr. Marie Vans about social VR.

So I would encourage you, who perhaps might never have heard of the Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education conference before, to consider attending this year. The final conference agenda has not been published yet, but you can already register for free for VWBPE 2023 via EventBrite. VWBPE 2023 organizers are also looking for volunteers (more information and a volunteer sign-up form are here).

You can visit the VWBPE website for more information. If you need to set up a Second Life avatar to attend VWBPE 2023, just visit the Second Life website and click on either of the places indicated by the red arrows (or just go here):

Setting up a Second Life avatar/account is easy

And if you should need a little help getting your Second Life avatar looking presentable and fashionable while spending as few Linden dollars as possible, well, Auntie Ryan has got you covered. 😉

See you at VWBPE 2023!

The 15th Annual Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education (VWBPE) Conference in Second Life, March 31st to April 2nd, 2022

This is just a brief blogpost to remind you that the 15th Annual Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education (VWBPE) Conference is taking place in Second Life from March 31st to April 2nd, 2022. SL blogger Inara Pey writes:

The 2022 Virtual Worlds Best Practice in Education (VWBPE) conference will be taking place between March 31st and April 2nd inclusive, and both a call for proposals and a call for volunteers to help run things has been issued…

VWBPE is a global grass-roots community event focusing on education in immersive virtual environments which attracts over 2,000  educational professionals from around the world each year, who participate in 150-200 online presentations including theoretical research, application of best practices, virtual world tours, hands-on workshops, discussion panels, machinima presentations, and poster exhibits.

In the context of the conference, a “virtual world” is an on-line community through which users can interact with one another and use and create ideas irrespective of time and space. As such, typical examples include Second Life, OpenSimulator, Unity, World of Warcraft, Eve Online, and so on, as well as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest or any virtual environments characterized by an open social presence and in which the direction of the platform’s evolution is manifest in the community.

For more information, please see the VWBPE website. If you wish to volunteer at the conference, please visit this information page and volunteer sign-up form.

See you there!

ScienceVR: A Brief Introduction

ScienceVR is a Palo Alto, California-based startup which describes itself as follows:

ScienceVR is an indie VR studio in its early days. We are passionate about visualizing human knowledge and abstract ideas by turning them into immersive and delightful experiences. We are a team of XR prototypers, educators, and storytellers working on a metaverse build on top of distributing human knowledge.

ScienceVR offers two different products: a series of web-based social VR events, and a line of virtual reality apps for various VR headsets including the Oculus Quest, Oculus Rift, and HTC Vive. Here’s a quick promo video, with ScienceVR founder and CEO Jackie Lee:

You can see the line-up of science and literature related events here (you can only register for the first three so far, and they are all free to attend).

The immersive lesson apps include (all descriptions were taken verbatim from the website):

Ada’s Engines: With Ada’s Engines, travel back in time to Charles Babbage’s salon to witness the Difference Engines in action. Then, find yourself transported to an Industrial Age workshop. Compile and execute a piece of music on a programmable Analytic Engine, as envisioned by Ada Lovelace. In Lovelace’s Notes, she wrote, “the engine might compose elaborate and scientific pieces of music of any degree of complexity or extent.” (for Oculus Rift and HTC Vive)

Carroll’s Riddles: Carroll’s Riddles: The Game of Logic is a fantastical and puzzling world based on the works of British logician and writer Lewis Carroll (1832-1898). You are invited on a journey to become immersed in the idiosyncrasies of Carroll’s mental landscape. Upon entering the virtual world, you meet with Alice and a talking rabbit. Aided with an interactive Carroll Diagram, you make your way out of the tree hole by tackling logic riddles. This immersive journey is unlike any other, pushing the limits of your imagination and challenging you to find logic in a nonsensical world. (for Oculus Quest)

Curie’s Radiance: Curie’s stories and scientific discoveries. This is an interactive adventure through the discovery of radioactive elements – Radium and Polonium, inviting users to engage with science in unexpected and memorable ways. (for Oculus Quest, and there’s even a version for the Magic Leap One!)

Faraday’s Magnets: What if we can visualize invisible forces around magnets? Step into a virtual and interactive laboratory built based on historical materials related to Michael Faraday and James Clerk Maxwell. This experience enables your learners to see the “invisible forces” around magnets. (for Oculus Rift and Oculus Quest)

Shelley’s Creation: Shelley’s Creation (work-in-progress) is a special sci-fi VR experience built based on biology, history, and sci-fi stories around Mary Shelley’s book – Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus. We start by re-creating the scene from 1816 so that our users can answer Mary Shelley’s question:

“Would life be given? Perhaps a corpse would be re-animated; Galvanism had given token of such things: perhaps the component parts of a creature might be manufactured, brought together, and endued with vital warmth.”

​Our users will follow these thinkers’ inspirations including traveling to John Milton’s Paradise Lost, meeting Lucia and Luigi Galvani when they discover Galvanism, competing in Lord Byron’s ghost story contest, and solving the mystery of electricity and biology. (for Oculus Quest)

If you are interested in ScienceVR, visit their website or follow them on social media: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. While the apps appear to be single-user VR, the line-up of events is social VR, so I am adding ScienceVR to my comprehensive list of social VR and virtual worlds.