Do you really need to be present to direct runway traffic? To train for surgery? To enjoy a field trip? Virtual reality (VR) technology is challenging the notion that you do—across many fields of education and enterprise.
Nowhere is the digital age more present than in healthcare. Patients benefit from swallow-able cameras and cellphones that assess vitals. Now VR can also provide lifelike learning for millions of medical students—and they don’t even have to come to class. Imagine a surgeon learning his technique through a lens—no matter where he’s located!
Surgeon Shafi Ahmed wears camera-enabled glasses to broadcast a hernia operation. He uses Microsoft’s Hololens headset to bring dozens of physicians into a “virtual” operating theater during a bowel surgery.
Some of Ahmed’s colleagues think watching an operation isn’t an acceptable substitute for interacting with real patients. Ahmed believes his approach helps demystify surgery—and encourages people into healthcare. “Unless you challenge [traditional medicine], you will settle with mediocrity, stuck in the dark ages,” he says.
Clearance from the Tower
Your next airplane landing may be orchestrated by someone nowhere near the airport. Sky-high tech advances—plus pressure to improve safety and reduce costs—may make air traffic control (ATC) towers outdated. Airports worldwide are closing them. They’re using ATC centers miles from airfields instead. Workers at those locations use video feeds broadcast from high-definition cameras into their offices. From those remote locations, they monitor flights at multiple airports. Backup cameras ensure continuous coverage if equipment fails.
London’s busy City Airport is switching to a virtual ATC system. Controllers will direct airplanes at the runway from a new center. It will be 80 miles from the airport itself. Experts are also testing virtual towers in the United States and Australia.
Meanwhile, Down on the Farm . . .
Students are deep-sea diving, dissecting cells, observing cows, or swimming through the human circulatory system—without leaving the classroom. Increasingly user-friendly VR devices mean “field trips” aren’t limited by time, staffing constraints, or length of a bus ride.
Science teacher Colin Jones says virtual experiences offer “something that can be done in a period or two” at the push of a button. Some complicated labs take several days to complete.
Brain researcher Richard Lamb says some research shows that VR experiences prompt similar physical reactions to the actual activity: “Heart rate, cognition, breathing, everything.”
Teacher David Evans questions how closely virtual experiences mimic the actual world. But he admits, “the ability to do dangerous things” and to repeat experiments offer “a huge learning opportunity.”
Lamb and Evans agree that technology should enrich—not replace—real-world activity. “We have to remain anchored in the actual world,” Evans cautions, “because that’s the one that we really need to explain.”
