One of the biggest challenges of the coronavirus pandemic is finding ways to teach students without endangering them or a school's faculty. However, teachers in Poland are discovering a new method of delivering lessons to their students, one that may seem more on the borders of science fiction than it does reality. That solution is VR, or more specifically, Valve's VR game, Half-Life Alyx.
A video uploaded to YouTube demonstrates how the lessons work. It begins as a typical live stream count down until a teacher shows up on the screen. Shortly after, the footage cuts to Half-Life: Alyx, and the lesson begins. Half-Life Alyx features working markers, one of the game's admittedly gimmicky, but in this circumstance, useful features.
The setup is used for numerous lessons, kicking off with English, where teacher points out different objects throughout the room, and spells them out on the board. Other lessons function the same way, with teachers using the markers on either windows or in-game whiteboards to run through lessons. It's a simple, but effective, way to utilize the technology, though certainly not what Valve originally intended it to be used for.
According to interviews by UploadVR, the staff wanted to try something new, as well as help the kids with the "uncomfortable situation" brought on by the coronavirus pandemic. The lessons date back all the way to March, when the pandemic was starting to worsen. Six lessons were recorded in total, lasting about two hours each, and uploaded on Twitch, Facebook, and YouTube for students to watch.
VR could be utilized by the school in the future, too, as both the students and teachers seemed to enjoy the method. It certainly is cutting-edge, and it begs the question of how long it will take before VR lessons become the norm for students across the world. It's hard to argue that it isn't a practical application for the technology, especially in areas that may have difficulty teaching in traditional formats. Virtual reality is at a tipping point, and while it's still a bit early, it may become an increasingly common method of teaching future generations.
Interestingly, this isn't the first time that this has been done. Back when the game first released, a teacher used Half-Life Alyx for a math lesson, proving how versatile it can be. With new innovations consistently being made with the technology, the future for VR-based learning seems incredibly bright.
Half-Life: Alyx is available now for PC.
Source: UploadVR