Virtual Reality is changing the way kids are learning. Carver is the first school in Philadelphia to implement VR.
VR is a completely new way of looking at the way that kids learn. Instead of looking at math problems on paper, now kids can see their problems in the world around them.
“I think that it helps the concepts,” says Mr. Dekorte, a math teacher at Carver HSES, “ it’s trying to show a concept, and be able to manipulate it and see it for yourself”.
There are draw backs to this system though, it’s not streamlined yet so it’s not the standard for schools across the city. It’s also not ideal to set up since it take 10-15 mins to set up for an entire classroom.
“Typically, the best classes to use it are the longer ones because trying to set up in 10 minutes, put it away in 10 minutes, and run out of time” says Dekorte.
Students using VR in Algebra 2 class, at Carver high school. It's being used to put math concepts right in front of the student.
The VR system uses an application called, Prisms, and is used to make worksheets interactable.
The goal of the company is to “authentically engage students by immersing learners in current & compelling problems that naturally elicit math intuition, sense-making, and purpose-driven problem solving.” (via Prisms website).
Carver HSES is the first school and currently the only school to implement this system.
“At this point, no other school has the resources to implement this system,” says Dekorte “this is the first school in Philadelphia”
Teachers love this system too. It’s being accepted by multiple teachers in Carver HSES.
“I love the idea of using VR as a tool to teach math in the classroom. I think that for students, it gives them kind of a break from multitasking” says Andrea Ruby, the coordinator for the VR system at Carver HSES, “It's a single use device and they're completely enthralled in the headset”.
Instead of being distracted by many different things in class students can be completely immersed in the headset.
“And so I don't have students on their cell phones are trying to do different assignments.” says Ruby, “And they're really focused on just the task at hand”.
Inside look at the Prisms VR software, being used for algebra here, this was taken for a demo on the Prims youtube channel.
This system will soon be available across the city, and will improve the speed at which students learn.
“I've never taught residuals before when I teach lines of best fit, just because it's kind of like higher statistics. It's not on the algebra, one Keystone, but in prisms through VR, they learned about residuals when they were building a line of best fit”
VR is the future of the digital classroom, it will revolutionize the way kids are learning, and change the way teachers are teaching. Hopefully Carver will be the first of many schools in philadelphia to implement this system.
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