It was a matter of time until institutions such as MIT paid more attention to virtual reality. There is a new maker space on the MIT campus, yet it only exists in VR. Students are currently working on hacking virtual reality to come up with new use cases, expose potential flaws, and so forth. It is an interesting concept which is gaining a lot of attention.
MIT and VR Makes an Interesting Combination
Even though virtual reality is still in its infancy, a lot of potential scenarios need to be explored. MIT has introduced a new hands-on humanities class. During this course, students focus on VR and Immersive Media Production. That hands-on approach touches upon multiple facets associated with creating VR content.
Unlike what one may assume, this is not pure content creation either. The students tackle technical challenges, including resolving fatigue after wearing a VR headset for an hour or longer. Additionally, they also attempt to discover new visual languages and narrative forms to use later on. The opportunities are virtually limitless with VR these days.
MIT Instructor Sandra Rodriguez explains this new course as follows:
“For this medium to thrive, we need to ensure there is a healthy diversity in the stories that are created, produced, and distributed. To me, this means helping students become creators themselves. You need to understand the technical tools. but this class is about creativity, overcoming challenges, and contributing to the culture of pioneers.”
This new course at MIT has attracted a lot of attention. It is also well-received by the students, mainly because of the different points of focus during the class. It goes into design quite heavily, yet also touches upon philosophical aspects, the technology side of things, and creative storytelling. It seems there are no boring moments when this course is being taught.
Header image courtesy of Shutterstock
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