A virtual classroom for remote education

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Education has been severely disrupted by the current Covid-19 health crisis, with opportunity for direct student-teacher interaction limited. Current solutions to the problem include the use of corporate teleconferencing tools, which are not entirely appropriate for the task of educating minors. There are numerous privacy issues and it is difficult for teachers to directly interact with students, or to monitor their engagement and progress over the course of a lesson.Valkyrie Industries proposes a virtual classroom, a digital tool enabling teachers to provide interactive remote education. The classroom will mirror it's real world counterpart, providing a familiar environment for continued learning amongst Covid-19 disrupted schoolchildren and university students. It will provide all of the tools expected by teachers in a real teaching environment, and enable students to join using devices ranging from mobile and smart tv to VR-ready computers.Building on our expertise in natural, embodied interaction and years of developing virtual environments, Valkyrie Industries are creating a ubiquitous tool appropriate for teaching remotely. In the short-term, this would hugely benefit students whose education is currently on hold with fragmented government oversight on remote learning solutions. In the long-term it would provide a teaching resource that leverages the full potential of virtual learning, enhancing classrooms by offering students and distance learners access to group lessons anytime and anywhere. It can boost engagement, immersing teachers and students in new experiences and defying physical limitations with virtual trips into space, inside a virtual human body or exploring atoms.Ultimately, it could also leverage Valkyrie Industries' patented haptic technology to touch and feel the virtual, such as handling moon rocks, for a truly immersive learning experience. However, for the scope of this project we are focussing on the major issues of specificity and security that curtail the use of current available teleconferencing tools.Our virtual classroom will mirror the performance of a real classroom, enabling teachers to hold their own unique classes or full VR lectures. Virtual environments and objects help to simulate a classroom environment, improving learning retention and class interaction. Teachers will be able to gauge student engagement and to test their progression through mini quizzes, questions and built in monitoring. The simple act of looking at a student in a classroom improves how they will respond to the teacher; it is this embodiment that we intend to simulate.