Philippine Cyber Institute Simulation

Have you ever wondered what it's like to go to a place that you've never been? Perhaps when the Science of Space has been taught to you way back in third grade, you've dreamed at least once to experience landing on the moon like Neil Armstrong did. All of these would have been possible if virtual reality were implemented in school.

(from left to right - Ephrem Dela Cerna, Christian Go, Sergio Ramos)

October 19, 2018 - room 608, iACADEMY

     

     The representatives of Philippine Cyber Institute visited our class to teach us about this advanced technology called virtual reality. The whole class were completely in awe as they were setting up the equipment in front. As you can see on the picture, the speakers first demonstrated how the technology works and explained the functions of each part. Immersion in virtual reality technology pertains to the ability to replicate an environment that is just an illusion of a real world surrounding. To be able to create a replica of an environment, they get a 360 degree view of the place then carefully arrange the pixels to form an image. It really requires a lot of effort and patience to finish a virtual reality image. 

     Sir Ephrem mentioned that schools in the Philippines still teach children by the use of textbooks, whereas in other countries they start to use robotics in education. The Philippines' education system hasn't developed yet compared to other countries. I agree that we should step up our learning in schools by improving our technology. As a student, I sometimes have a hard time understanding the concepts of Science. It takes me hours to understand a single lesson just by reading books and listening to the teacher. It's sometimes hard to picture a scientific event just by relying on the limited information of textbooks. Now that I knew that there's this technology where I can finally visualize the texts I only read in books, it makes me feel excited if it were to be implemented since I'll be able to see it with my own eyes. For example, if the lesson is about volcanoes, then seeing it personally would make a student understand it better. But not all can afford to go to a certain place were volcanoes are located. So if virtual reality exist in schools, it would give the students an opportunity to travel into places. Imagine if the lesson is about space and there's a virtual reality for that, students would instantly go to space just by sitting in their classrooms. It would surely provide them a new learning experience that they'd enjoy. PCI Tech Center aims to provide nationwide access to globally competent education through ingenious solutions and adaptive technology. Virtual reality should not only be started in schools for the youth to have good quality education, we should also slowly implement it in the whole Philippines for the society to be exposed in modern technology. In that way, we'll improve our production, services, infrastructures and many more. Virtual reality can help our country progress as well as be globally competitive.

     There are fields that use virtual reality and one good example for that is the field of medicine. In the study of medicine or brain, it's noted that VR simulations are used by medical practitioners through computer representations of physical body parts. As a student of Humanities and Social Sciences, VR can also benefit me in my future career as a lawyer if the virtual reality pictures the crime scene for example. In that way I'll be able to observe possible outcomes even if I'm not present during the crime scene. It's best to defend a client if I somehow experience the atmosphere of the situation. 

VR is more than just a movie that we see on screen. The virtual environment seems so real as if you're not in a computer. Well, that's based on my experience.

The best sociological imagination for this learning session is symbolic interaction because the way the speakers explained to us virtual reality technology is how they see the benefits of it on their perspective. They believe that virtual reality can contribute to the society and they influence a lot of people by communicating their message on their PCI Tech Center. They encourage the people to support virtual reality by demonstrating it to us as well as letting us try it. They spread their message by interacting with groups of people.

Sources:
www.facebook.com/ephrem.cerna
geekwire.com