Production Transcript for Hubtalk-Episode-17-VR.mp3




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>> You've tuned into HubTalk, a podcast about teaching, learning and technology. 

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>> Okay, welcome back to this episode of HubTalk. I'm Colin Stapp. 

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>> And I'm Bill Hamlin. 

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>> And today, our topic is about virtual reality, and using VR and XR in the classroom. And we have two guests with us today. We have chemistry instructor here at Chemeketa, Ben Frankamp, and our Media Specialist in the Center for Academic Innovation, Sage Freeman. Thank you both for joining us today. 

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>> Yeah, hi. 

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>> Yeah, thank you. Excited to be here. 

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>> All right. So, Sage, I have a question for you, because when I think of VR, I often think of video games and sci-fi movies from the '80s and '90s. So someone who's brand new to VR, or has just that idea of VR in their head, what would be kind of today's definition of VR, and maybe segue us into, you know, what we're going to be talking about in terms of how it relates to education. 

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>> Yeah, thanks, Bill. That's a great way to start out this whole conversation. Really, I'd like to take the word VR and just kind of put it aside for a minute, that's a technical term, really. What we're here to talk about today is immersive experiences, and when we talk about education, it's immersive learning. And there's different forms of immersion, whether you're fully immersed with a headset, or whether you're partially or semi-immersed on a phone or on a desktop computer. And something, you know, happened. When COVID occurred, a lot of us went online, and we went, connected through Zoom, and there's -- there was so much video conferencing and connections going on through Zoom that there was a real desire out there in the industry and in the education as well to find other ways to connect with people. And so that really has spurred the growth of this technology innovation in the last year and a half is because of that. 

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So you're going to find, very soon, there's going to be a wealth of platforms out there for teaching and learning, specifically, in an immersive experience. So maybe that's a -- hopefully, a quick answer to that. 

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>> Yeah, thanks, Sage. I think that's important to keep in mind as we continue talking about this, it's not necessarily just the kind of traditional thought or idea that we think about when we hear the words virtual reality. It's a lot more than just, you know, putting on this plastic set of goggles and playing a game. It's well beyond that, into more immersive and interactive ways of teaching and learning, so -- 

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>> Well, -- 

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>> -- that -- 

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>> -- yeah. And just to add to that too, there are case studies and research that demonstrates that full immersion has higher, achieves higher learning objectives for students, especially when you're in complex learning environments, where they have to be able to react, they have to make decisions, they're surrounded by a lot of different input. And the thing is, is the immersion in those types of training situations is proving to be really highly valuable for enterprise. So companies and corporations are really investing in VR training for workforce. And education is also really starting to come on board with VR, and VR is needing them also, and I'll tell you more about that. But through open source, and through a lot of these platforms that are actually designed for creating intentionally-designed experiences for education, and whether it be in healthcare, or in Ben's case, you know, with Chemistry, there is more effect with immersion. 

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But there's also an effect -- there's a lot of value, even if you're not wearing a headset, and we can talk more about semi-immersion too, if we have a chance. 

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>> Ben, could you describe just a little bit of what you've been doing on your sabbatical work this year, with VR and immersive education? 

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>> Yeah, I can. I appreciate the opportunity to be here. I have a very, -- I mean, the opportunity to just jump into this VR experience and didn't anticipate that it would happen during the middle of a pandemic and have this kind of other overlay of the sort of breadth of the experience that we can offer. But that definitely has come out of it as I've worked through the project and done that. So initially, my focus was very direct. Molecules are small, and if you want to interact with the scale of a molecule, if you want to interact with it the way that we interact with other physical objects in our experience, you just can't do it. Right? And so, when you go in the lab and you interact with molecules, you're interacting with a whole suite of molecules, a whole sort of aggregate of the molecules, and you're looking at collective behavior. And that collective behavior is amazing, it's cool. But it can be really abstract and hard for students to think about how does the individual molecule behave in this system, when, really, what I'm looking at is the collective behavior of the system. 

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And so, my perspective was, if I can get students into this virtual sort of immersive world of VR, or AR, I didn't know at the beginning, then maybe I can help them see that these molecules are sort of real physical things, very small but real physical things that they can have some, you know, familiarity with, and some sort of like intuitive understanding of what's going on. And so that was really my goal as I started my sabbatical project, was to try and present something that was a very tiny scale in a way that they can interact with. And I picked on a specific topic of Chemistry, a specific sort of concept of chemical polarity, because, number one, I think that chemical polarity is immensely important, and we can talk about the reasons why we think that. So I think that that chemical polarity is immensely important. And also, I think that it sort of leverages this chemical intuition. So when I think about molecules, I sort of have an intuition about what is happening with the molecule, whether it's going to be soluble in water, whether it's going to function as a good drug target for a certain protein that I want to interact with. 

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There's an intuition that's there that's built on experience, lots of experience. And so if I had an ideal for my students, it would be that they could learn, sort of develop this intuition about chemical molecules. And I think that the way you get intuition about something is that you have experiences with that thing, and then you observe those experiences, you analyze those experiences, you do the sort of scientific thought process around an experience. And so I wanted to create an experience that allowed them to interact with these things that are really small, and that they can do it. So that's kind of the big picture of the sabbatical project. 

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>> What you described is really great, like getting students to interact with this tiny little molecule that maybe they don't understand the context, they don't understand the scale. And so it sounds like a lot of your research was around developing an immersive experience around those molecules. Do you see being able to use immersive experiences farther in other scenarios or lab settings in your Chemistry courses, beyond just what you did your research on and your development on right now? 

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>> Yeah. I love the question, and I think that my intention for the year was to, number one, build the experience, and then number two, to have the capability now within the physical science department to now tackle something else, to tackle hydrogen bonding, or to tackle, you know, protein substrate interactions or to tackle partitioning, you know, into a lipid layer or into the water layer. And so there's lots of other concepts. I can imagine, you know, lots and lots of other things in the Chemistry world that might be applicable to this kind of immersive environment, where students are really using all of the skills of their tactile world around them to learn something that is not necessarily direct. I've thought about this a lot, and I think about, you know, if you stop a random person on the street, and you say, you know, "Just humor me, can you put a baseball through a garden hose?" And they're going to answer you instantly, and they're going to answer you with full confidence that, "No, you cannot put a baseball through a garden hose," because they have this physical understanding of what that object looks like in its scale. 

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And you could give them calipers, and you could give them, you know, ropes to measure the diameter of the ball and measure the diameter of the hose. Our brains can do that, and our brains can do that quickly, that we can just, -- we just know that information, because that's the way that our brains think. And so if I can put this molecule into that exact same environment and say, "Is this molecule going to be polar or not?" And if their brain can sort of snap to, "It's not going to be polar," and then we can begin this conversation where we discuss why is it not polar? And that conversation about why is so much more important than whether or not it's polar or not polar. But as the student is learning, they try and do both of them at the same time. They try and understand like, is it polar or not? And then they try and say, "Well, why is it polar? And why is it not?" And they just get in this loop where they can't get out of it, because they just don't have this sort of fundamental understanding of, "Oh, it's not polar. [brief laughter]." "I don't have to think about it, it's just not." And so if I can give them this set of experiences so that they can just look at it and say, "It's not polar. 

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Now let's think about why. It's so interesting why it's not polar," then they can move forward. And so, back to your question, I think that you could imagine sets of experiences that you would feed to a student group where they can then discuss them and sort of internalize them, and sort of generalize this understanding into lots of different kinds of things. And then, again, have this like chemical intuition, this science intuition, that then they can move and explain something new or sort of move out from that. Like, give them a good foundation and let them move out. That's my hope. 

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>> I mean, that sounds super exciting. I never thought that I was really good at Science or Math, and definitely Chemistry, I struggled with. So just hearing you talk about it gets me excited, like, "Wow, I want to go into this immersive experience and see what these molecules are like," you know, it's like I want to take a Chemistry class now so -- [brief laughter]. So you're on sabbatical, and you've been developing this immersive experience, you haven't necessarily had a chance to try it out with students or within your classes yet, have you? 

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>> I have not. I've just been doing the developing piece, initially. And I didn't really have a huge background in coding, and so as I reflect on my education process, I feel like not understanding how to code something is a detriment. I needed to understand how to do that, because it's just everywhere now. Right? 

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>> Mm-hmm. 

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>> And so I was like, "Okay, well, I need to learn this," and this was an opportunity to learn something new, I think that's what sabbatical was about for me is to learn something new, and also address the need that I see in my classroom. So yeah, I learned some C Sharp and worked with a program called Unity to build this experience. Unity is traditionally a game platform, but they have a lot of interactions across training and across the industry. They are a very large and influential company in this sort of development space around VR, AR, XR, WebXR, all of the kind of acronym soup that we have to describe what's going on. But this immersive world is here, and it's just going to get bigger. It's not going to go away at this point. 

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>> Ben, I had -- I have another question for you, kind of related to Colin's, about kind of where you see this going in your Chemistry classes. You've talked about bringing these really small things into these immersive environments so students can interact with them and understand what's happening at this really small level. Do you see any use of VR, maybe augmented reality, down the road or something, to either replace, or at least supplement the traditional Chemistry lab environment? So like, maybe, instead of coming to campus to do a Chemistry lab, students are doing it in virtual reality, or they're doing a Chemistry lab on campus, but they also have AR information where they can, you know, put on some glasses or use a camera or something, and see additional information laid over the physical lab space? 

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Like is that on your radar at all? 

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>> Yeah, I think that that's incredible, and is going to happen. And what's cool, from my perspective, is that you would initially look at this technology as something that can allow you to have these physical interaction experiences with the molecule, right? It has this teaching overlay that is so exciting. And then, you get to say, "Now, I can actually ship this to a student somewhere remotely," and have that same experience, but then serve a student population that can't make it to campus or can't do something or for whatever reason, just their schedule doesn't work, or we can bring in experts from across the country that have a specific expertise. And we can have an interaction that can be opening and broadening horizons for our students that aren't tied to the physical lab space. And so, I think what's nice is that you get both of them in the same package. You know, you get an opportunity to have a more direct interaction, and you get an opportunity to expand how you deliver that. I don't know how quickly that will roll out. 

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Again, I didn't anticipate that. But again, I believe that it's here, and it's coming. And so, you know, maybe Sage can talk to that later, or now, if we [brief laughter] want to -- 

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>> Yeah. 

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>> -- jump there. 

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>> Yeah, if I could just jump in real quick. You know, one of the things that Ben did was he identified a very discreet goal with this sabbatical, with the grant funding that he received for his project. And I think that's important to point out because the goal was for him to determine an outcome, and so he's yet to do that, right? Once he actually applies it with students and sees what the results are, then we'll see what Ben's interest is to carry this further. But I could say that there's a couple of different things that could happen here. One is that, certainly, Ben can at least get his content in front of students and have them experience what he's created. And that's really important from the aspect of Ben being a creator here, because those skills are in really high demand. And so just the amount of skills that Ben has developed during this time, that's really quite valuable. So as -- especially as an educator, and perhaps even more in his field of Chemistry, so that's exciting. So just kind of spark that interest and curiosity and foster and nurture that with our faculty. 

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There's part of that creation pipeline that we need to be able to create educational content in these immersive spaces. So if we ask questions of Ben, like, "What are you doing next? Where are you going now? What's the future, Ben?" You know, he might be feeling a little like, "I'm not sure," and that is totally acceptable. But if Ben or anyone else is interested to pursue VR, or to augment their classrooms and their curriculum, there are lots of opportunities and the Center for Academic Innovation is a great place to start. If you're looking to just create some content, if you're just looking to have a specific activity that you want to engage learners with in an immersive environment, or if you want to conduct an entire class, and even develop curriculum around the VR space, those are all possibilities. So hopefully, that helps to answer that a little bit. 

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>> Yeah, that's awesome. 

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>> Ben, during your sabbatical, your research, did you run into any like examples of other faculty using VR, or creating content in VR, that kind of inspired you, maybe some examples outside of your field that you actually brought into your work, anything like that? 

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>> I think the things that fascinate me about virtual reality that are outside of the Science field, and I'll use Sciences as a broad thing, not just Chemistry, but -- 

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>> Mm-hmm. 

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>> -- there are lots of things in Science that are constructive when you can get down into the actual piece itself. But the things that actually fascinate me about virtual reality are maybe how we perceive ourselves, more of this sort of psychological study of how we would perceive ourselves in our environment, and allowing the virtual world to replace our perception of who we are with a different race or a different height, or a different body type or a different way that we would interact with our environment. And then, let's interact with our environment with a different perspective, because our brain doesn't necessarily understand that it's not real, it's sort of, -- you know, we're feeding it, we're feeding into a center of our brain that sort of interprets that as real. And so, I want to harness that in my Science class, but I'm fascinated by the opportunity to harness that, to broaden how we think and to challenge assumptions about things that are, basically, already hardwired in our brain. 

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We, -- you know, we can challenge these implicit biased sort of kind of concepts. But virtual reality may allow that to be streamlined into a way that you can sort of push that back in a way and give your brain a space to sort of reorient and get broader. And so, I think I didn't do research in that area, but that's the kind of thing that I feel like VR might have this huge impact outside of gaming and fun, and just enjoy, but like, you know, like just this social impact is so, so cool. And if you can use VR to impact that, that's incredible. So -- 

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>> Yeah. So you -- I mean, it -- I haven't done much in terms of being involved with an immersive experience in VR, but it sounds like it can go way beyond just the specific content you're learning about. So, Sage, I know you've been researching VR and creating content, and working with other educators and creators, really, around the globe over the last few months. What are some of the more exciting things you've seen? Or maybe just give us a range of examples of uses of VR, or just immersive environments in education that have really piqued your interest? 

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>> You know, I've been really engaged with VR and education, this -- especially, this last month. A lot of this I didn't plan on, it just happened. So I discovered this organization called Educators in VR. It's a global organization that focuses on supporting education through virtual reality and augmented reality, and all of those other realities that we talk about. They're a terrific organization, and they've really brought together a full month-long conference, lined up with industry leaders and thought leaders and pioneers. I've attended so many panel sessions and workshops, and sat in on so many different VR platforms this month, over a dozen, and some have really risen to the top. But I've also learned some things, a lot of things actually, about VR and about education. 

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And one of the things that I've learned is that you can create wonder with your learners, and wonder is the thing that was really like, it's the gold, it's what really sparks your students to learn, is that curiosity, it's that wonder. And VR can really do that. But when you do it in a purposeful and intentional way, then it's really, really impactful. And I've seen demonstrations of that all month long. One of the most interesting experiences I've had so far was in an immersive environment with Alice in Wonderland, and it was a beautiful example of combining both literature, science, mathematics. And so we were teleported into this world, we're in Alice in Wonderland, and there we are at the tea party in the middle of the maze. And the maze is about a -- it's a hedge maze, so it's just right about just above eye level. So you can't see over the maze, you have to walk around, and there's fog in the environment. 

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So you kind of get lost in this maze if you go too far. And it's really challenging. Well, so we started out, and then the tea party, and there was Alice, and there was the White Rabbit. The White Rabbit was the creator of this world, and I believe he's from somewhere, I believe, it's from South Korea, I'm not sure. But in any case, he had created this environment, and he created logic puzzles in there. And so what he did was he took some riddles from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, and then he placed these little game puzzles throughout the world. And so you had to look at the riddles and the logic, and solve the puzzles. And then as you did that, you would gain points or experience, so it was gamified. And then once you reached a certain high score, then the level would refresh and it would start over again. It introduced you to a couple of things. One, was it introduced you to the literature and the richness of the language that's used in that book, then also the fascination and curiosity, right? That the creativity involved two of the classics. 

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And then, one of the funnest thing was that on the table, there were two objects. One was a muffin and the other was a bottle to drink from. And so there were some consequences to that. If you clicked on the bottle, you would shrink and then you couldn't reach the table again. 

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[ Laughter ] If you clicked on the muffin, you could see over the hedges, and you could cheat, and find the games a little bit faster. And so it was just an amazing experience, but, you know, it just showed like that really purposeful, intentional experience that was designed to introduce students to that. That's just one of many. There is one actual system that is really starting to really rise above all the rest. The platform is called Engage. It's made for communication, but it's really taking off for education. And if you're looking for a convincing platform that has a full content library of models that you can bring in and teach whatever curriculum you're teaching, that is probably the most impressive platform. And they do have a 2D version and a full VR version as well. I just want to finish by saying that one of the most exciting experiences I've had this month was they took us to Mars. 

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And there we were on the surface of Mars, and they were placing various models, 3D models, on the scene like the Mars Perseverance Rover, and the Ingenuity Helicopter and they were very accurate models. And there was atmosphere. You could see wind and dust, and, you know, hear the wind and there would be a lens flare off of the sun as you're standing on the planet. And there we're watching videos of NASA and learning about astronomy. They're on Mars with 25 other astronauts from across the globe. There was a person from Mexico and a gentleman from Australia that we made friends. It's really neat to see. And then to wrap up, they asked at the very end if there was anything, questions we had, and I said, "Well, can I fly in this place?" And they said, "Well, we can't let you fly in this place, but we can do something better." "We can take you for a helicopter ride." So they created a helicopter right there, and six of us jumped into the helicopter and we flew around the planet, and over the rest of the astronauts on the surface. 

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That type of experience is really extraordinary. And once you see it in an educational setting, that type of exposure is -- that's where VR is at right now is that we have an exposure gap. Many people don't know what it's like to be in VR. And even if you did, maybe three years ago or so, it didn't feel like it had that value that you might see now, when you go in and you see these types of educational experiences and settings. There are so many more things to tell you beyond just teaching general sciences or general education. There are soft skills that you could be teaching, for example, cultural literacy, empathy, leadership, those types of soft skills, they're using -- enterprises are training their leaders and their executives using VR for those types of scenarios and situations. So that immersion goes a long way beyond just training those hard skills, you know, learning through simulations. It's also now through social, and whether it's a social computer avatar you interact with or another person as an avatar, those things are happening. 

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>> Wow, that's -- [brief laughter]. 

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>> That's exciting. 

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>> -- that's unbelievable. Getting to stand on Mars and fly around. I mean, what can I say? I'm all on board, that's for sure. 

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>> I have a list of interests at Chemeketa, develop and foster what I'm calling an XR community, and in the northwest. But at Chemeketa, I have some very specific things that I'm interested in. The first thing I said is that exposure gap. So I want to expose as many students and faculty to VR as much as we can. And so one of the ways that we could do that is by building an XR studio at one of our campuses, maybe the Salem campus, where students and faculty can come in and try out XR, or try out VR equipment and learn more about it. So kind of a maker space kind of just a XR lab. The other thing that I'd like to do is establish a VR headset rental program through our campus bookstore. I'm working with an educational partner that can deliver that so that students can rent low-cost equipment, and be able to experience that at home or on campus, and have those devices at very low cost. I'm also interested in partnering with instructors like Ben so that we can develop and customize VR classrooms, and really scale up equipment into the classrooms for specific disciplines and specific needs. 

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I'm also interested in seeing if there's an opportunity to create a VR or XR planetarium at Chemeketa. Because we have a planetarium, and I think that it would be really an opportunity to close that exposure gap again by offering VR planetarium shows for people to come in and see. Also, that we need to develop that content pipeline. We need more 3D and VR content developed, so that we can be used for education, both at Chemeketa, and shared beyond. So having students be able to learn those skills, and I think partnering with our visual communications program in other areas where there could develop that content makes a lot of sense. And it also helps students learn the skills and build the content for other disciplines at the college. So that could be a really win-win there. Cultural exchange. There are tremendous opportunities at Chemeketa to connect with our local cultural communities out there. And we know that how important that that is. 

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One of the ways that I think we could do that is by using LiDAR technology to scan and collect cultural heritage, preservation of objects and environments that we can create either a gallery or an immersive experience around, then those communities can really engage with. So to end with that, I'm also interested in connecting with the local indigenous people of our area, because there's a rise in supporting cultural exchange, and so allowing them to be able to have spaces where they can have their ceremonies and events, but also to preserve their heritage too, and just change that with people that need to learn more about it, so there's opportunities. And as I'll do that through technology, I mentioned that there's 3D LiDAR scanning that is really starting to take off with the iPhone and the iPad, and those are opportunities. There's opportunities to create 3D content now through web-based tools that are easy to use. 360 Video, that's one of the last things I'll mention. 

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360 Video gives us the ability to add that immersion. So not just the models or the objects that we might scan and use as learning objects, but also to surround them. For example, maybe we could scan some mural arts, and then take 360 video of the artist talking about it, and geolocate it on Google maps so that people can discover it themselves and learn about it, and be immersed in it. 

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>> Those are some great opportunities that could expand here at Chemeketa, and thanks for sharing those. 

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>> So, Sage, I'm really excited about some of the work you're hoping to get up off the ground, and would love to be as involved as I can be. Ben, how did you get started with VR? And, you know, what could you maybe recommend to folks who are interested? 

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>> I would say, first off, take a sabbatical because it's lovely to be able to have some space to do that. But I got started because I was seeing the sabbatical on the horizon, and I wanted to pursue that. But I think if you don't have that in your window coming up, the first thing I did was I reached out to Sage and the Center for Academic Innovation. Then I just started to ask some questions. And while sabbatical is kind of a "This is your project that you get to go do and learn," it's not something that you do on your own, it's something that you get to do with lots of other people. And so I needed some equipment, that was one of the first things that I needed to be able to start, was I needed a computer that was able to run Unity. It's not a hugely intensive program, but it needs a certain sort of graphics card to do that. And I needed a virtual reality headset. I didn't currently own one as I was thinking about jumping into this. And so I wrote a grant and was fortunate enough to have that grant funded, and I was able to purchase the equipment that I needed, just the hardware that I needed to start with that. Then I needed the other sort of skill which we touched on earlier, which was the coding work. 

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And I got to about December of this sabbatical year, and I was like, "I need help," and so, actually, I used the tutorials that Unity has to do that. But they weren't like specific enough for what I wanted, and so, actually, I found two people on Patreon that I started to support. And so I started to support Vellam, and then VR with Andrew. And so, you know, this is $14 a month split between these two folks, right? And it was incredible, because it's a whole group of people that are developing games for VR. And while mine's not a game, it's exactly the same skill set. Like I need everything that they're doing, I need to be able to do that. I need to be able to post onto this discussion board in Discord and say like, "I can't make this work," and then they can come back and they can just help. You know, that sort of feedback is just totally invaluable. So I would say, reach out to -- maybe there's a little bit more non-traditional ways of getting help and information. Like network in the way that folks are networking. 

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And Patreon is one of the ways that if you are an independent developer of VR, you're using one of these, maybe three or four, kind of places to get information and to be helpful. So their basic sort of framework is to take the documentation and things that Unity is providing, which is like, "How do you do this?" And the Unity sort of documentation is very technical, and so it's just so nice to have someone guide you through, like, "This is how you would implement this type of interaction for Oculus Quest, this is how you would do that type of interaction for the Vive Cosmos," those are, in principle, both VR systems and you're like, "Those should both work," they don't just work. You have to do very specific things within your development process to sort of implement your idea in a different platform, even though they both sort of under this sort of VR umbrella. So as you jump into it, as you get into the sort of weeds of these things, you really just -- you need some help and some guidance. And so that was my path. I started with Sage and with the Academic Innovation Group, and then I just needed more help, and so I was able to reach out and find that within the community, there at Patreon, so -- 

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>> When Ben first met with me, it was great. He had already had some idea of what he was interested in doing. For example, you know, he knew he needed a computer. He knew that he needed a headset, he knew he wanted to learn Unity. He was going to go on sabbatical, he was really committed to learning Unity, and knew that, -- you know, we talked how it will be challenging, and he knew that. But it was a, really a good meeting because it did a couple things. I think it helped Ben to kind of just finalize this framework around his planning for his sabbatical. I think he was looking for somebody to bounce some ideas off to, and so -- but it was also really helpful for me, because it caused -- it kind of triggered me to go out and do more research because I wanted to do more of this, I want -- and I asked about it, and my colleagues and other colleges had been doing it. And so I jumped in real quick and I looked around and did some research and we looked at things like, "Well, let's look at the terms and definitions and concepts," you know, "What is VR?" Or, "What do we mean we say VR, or AR, or MR, or XR? 

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What are those four, you know, things?" We circled back and talked about those things. We talked about the VR developer workflow, we talked about different platforms that he could be working on, and deploying and sharing his content after he created it, and what that would mean. Some of those platforms don't exist anymore, when we talked [brief laughter]. And so that's how fast the technology has been changing too. It was really helpful, because it -- really, we looked at what the opportunities were. I thought we did a good job putting out -- on -- in front of us on the table, what was available, and he had a very specific goal in mind. So the third thing that was great about that meeting was that I could connect him with that funding through the Oregon Community College Distance Learning Association. That's where I've been a member of this workgroup under that association, called the Emergent Technology workgroup. And our mission in that workgroup is to connect faculty and educators with innovative technology, to help them to spark creativity and to innovate. And we -- our hope is always that they will apply that, what they learned, but really, it's focused really a lot on exploration. 

[00:36:00]
And so, I think it really complemented what Ben's outcomes were for his project. So those three things are really great. And I wanted to mention another thing, too, here. Ben was really committed to being a developer and gaining those skills. Those are really hard skills, to compliment Ben, you know, that's really admirable, for somebody to want to learn new skills like that. It's like learning a foreign language or learning something new like that, and learning to play an instrument that you've never played before. Also, not everybody is going to want to do that, and this audience that listens to this podcast, our educator audience, it's a broad audience. Many, many of those faculty are not going to want to do this, and they might be listening now and saying, "Oh, this isn't for me." Well, let me just tell you something. Not everybody is going to be like Ben and want to aspire to become a developer, and you don't have to. There is so much opportunity for you to get in at the ground floor and have easy to use tools for creating spaces and creating content, and interacting with your students. 

[00:37:02]
And so don't let this scare you away. [brief laughter]. 

[00:37:06]
>> No, don't be scared. Don't be scared. It -- the developing piece, it definitely gets easier, and it's gotten easier over the year that I have done this. So if I started my project today, I wouldn't use the same framework that I used when I started a year ago. It is just moving. And that's intimidating and daunting, that your skill set doesn't stay current unless you keep it current. But maybe that's more of a reality of programming than it is of that, but just as a teacher, right, we continue to strive to jump in the classroom and do it better the next time that we do it than we did the first. I think there are some tools that are very approachable with just some basic willingness to go some trial and error to go through that. And then I hope, you know, I would definitely say I can be a resource for folks if they want to try this, and they want to just jump in and try something, like, reach out. I'm happy to be supportive and to encourage you to try. It really is a lot of fun. And I don't have, yet, the resources with my students, but it's definitely going to come, and I'm going to iterate my experience with my students over the next year. 

[00:38:09]
We'll see where it is. We'll put it on GitHub, and we'll share it as much as we can. Yeah, you can do it. 

[00:38:16]
>> Yeah. Thank you. Thanks, Sage, for that last piece. Just about don't be scared of it and encouraging others. Sage, closing us out, where do you see immersive technologies in AR, XR, VR, all the acronyms soup? Where do you see that going in the next five years, say? 

[00:38:34]
>> So there's some really some major things that are about to happen. Do you all remember when the iPhone came out? Do you remember how there were lines for the iPhone and it took like a while before everybody could get an iPhone? And what happened after everybody got an iPhone? The iPhone really changed the world. And it wasn't just the iPhone, it was smartphones, right? But the iPhone really did change the world. And Apple has changed the world in a lot of different ways. They've changed it through introducing a graphic user interface. They introduced touchscreen technology in the iPhone, they introduced Bluetooth technology. They've introduced a lot of technologies that have made major changes in our lives, and they're about to announce new changes at the Worldwide Developers Conference. So they're going to be talking about their new augmented reality smart glasses that you'll be able to wear. Those glasses will also be more than just augmented reality. They'll also be -- they'll be able to support your vision and be able to adjust to different environments and lighting. 

[00:39:35]
What's interesting about that is that just because you can see augmented reality through glasses, you know, that seems a little like, you know, not very important. But what if I told you also that Apple is planning to create a real-time 3D version of the world. And when you look through those glasses, you'll be able to see both digital objects in your physical environment, and you can even create a digital environment in your physical environment. And so, it's really profound, say, like what's coming. There's a lot that's happening. I attended the world WebXR Developer Summit. This is the Developer Summit for WebXR. And XR stands for all things virtual, and I can tell you more about that. But XR stands for all of it. So when you hear XR, just think all of it, okay? And WebXR means that it happens in your browser. And so the internet as we know it is becoming 3D. And 3D, really, is an extension of the computer, and for example, how software has become an extension of the world, 3D will become even more of an extension of the world too. 

[00:40:42]
And so, I sat in that conference, and I noticed that there was a lot of focus on education. What are we doing with VR in education? And what are we doing to be purposeful and intentional about it? Both, -- but from a developer standpoint, and what I mean is, how do we create standards, open standards that are fair and inclusive, and protect our privacy, and are where we can create spaces in this new Metaverse, where we can all coexist and cohabitate in these safe environments? And so, I'm getting a little bit big picture here, but where I see it going next, like from a ground level, is that we need to get exposure to people and let them see what it's like. The best way to start out is going to be through that semi-immersive experience. And just to finish, I purchased my Oculus Quest headset for Christmas. And I had realized that if I'm going to really understand what this is like, I need to actually have my own device so that I can go in and explore these things and find out what everybody is talking about. 

[00:41:48]
That made a profound difference in my access and understanding is that our exposure to this. So if you're kind of thinking about making an investment, I really encourage you to think about purchasing a headset for yourself. I've already purchased one for my mom. 

[00:42:03]
>> That's great. Thanks for sharing that, and it'll be interesting to see what your mom thinks of immersive realities. Thank you both, Ben and Sage, for joining us for this episode. And for all of our listeners, we'll probably share more on our website, facultyhub.chemeketa.edu, in a companion blog post. There's so much about immersive technologies. And, Ben, once your sabbatical is over and you're back in the classroom, and you get to try out some of what you've developed, we'd love to have you back and share some of your experiences. And maybe even, you know, you can bring a student along with you too. We always love to hear from students directly about their learning experiences. 

[00:42:47]
>> Yeah, I'd be happy to do it. And I can tell you that the students are excited. They're excited to try something different. You know, it feels fun. Like, that fun piece of education is important, so -- 

[00:42:57]
>> Definitely, yeah, thank you very much. Okay, thank you and stay tuned for our next episode of HubTalk. HubTalk is produced by the Center for Academic Innovation at Chemeketa Community College. Visit our website, facultyhub.chemeketa.edu, to find helpful resources about teaching, learning and technology integration, along with video tutorials and more podcast episodes just like this one. 

[00:43:23]
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