A virtual classroom for remote education

当前的新型冠状病毒肺炎（COVID-19，即2019冠状病毒病）健康危机严重扰乱了教育，师生直接互动的机会有限。目前解决这一问题的办法包括使用公司的电话会议工具，但这并不完全适合教育未成年人的任务。有许多隐私问题，教师很难直接与学生互动，或在课程过程中监控他们的参与和进度。Valkyrie Industries提出了一个虚拟教室，一个数字工具，使教师能够提供互动式远程教育。教室将反映出真实的世界，为受新型冠状病毒感染影响的中小学生和大学生提供一个熟悉的继续学习环境。它将提供教师在真实的教学环境中所期望的所有工具，并使学生能够使用从移动的和智能电视到VR就绪的计算机等设备加入。基于我们在自然，体现互动和多年开发虚拟环境方面的专业知识，Valkyrie Industries正在创建一个适用于远程教学的无处不在的工具。从短期来看，这将使那些目前因政府对远程学习解决方案的分散监督而被搁置的学生受益匪浅。从长远来看，它将提供一种充分利用虚拟学习潜力的教学资源，通过为学生和远程学习者提供随时随地的集体课程来加强课堂。它可以提高参与度，让教师和学生沉浸在新的体验中，并通过虚拟太空旅行、虚拟人体或探索原子来挑战物理限制。最终，它还可以利用Valkyrie Industries的专利触觉技术来触摸和感受虚拟，例如处理月球岩石，以获得真正身临其境的学习体验。然而，对于本项目的范围，我们专注于限制当前可用电话会议工具使用的特殊性和安全性的主要问题。我们的虚拟教室将反映真实的教室的性能，使教师能够举办自己独特的课程或完整的VR讲座。虚拟环境和对象有助于模拟课堂环境，提高学习保留率和课堂互动。教师将能够衡量学生的参与度，并通过迷你测验，问题和内置监控来测试他们的进步。在教室里看学生的简单行为可以改善他们对老师的反应;我们打算模拟的就是这种体现。

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.