Back to School Jitters

It's been 16 years since I completed my undergrad in Radio and Television Arts at Ryerson in Toronto. I just completed my course request form for my Masters in Media Production, due to begin this Fall. I have to say, I'm a little nervous.

Though I've been teaching high school Communications Technology for the last 13 years and have taken several courses in education and media during that time, it's the technical side of things that has me sweating. I signed up for a course on digital virtual environments. This is an area my professors talked about back in the very early 90's, telling us to keep an eye on the future of this technology.

My knowledge in digital virtual environments is amateur at best. I use digital virtual sets with my students in the new TV studio at the school where I teach on a Newtek VT5 system I set up but I know this is just a small introduction into the world of digital virtual environments. The gaming world is evolving rapidly with virtual reality technology and even the movie industry's special effects/animation departments have grabbed hold. High-tech companies are continuing to build evolving and complex systems using virtual reality for training in a variety of industries. Christie Digital of Kitchener, Ontario held an exhibit at the Canada 3.0 Digital Showcase in Stratford this past Spring. On a break from manning a booth for the school board I wandered over to take a peek. They had a virtual reality display set up to simulate the "virtual" manufactured inside space of a helicopter to help designers with the placement of controls in the space. The perspective could be transferred to multiple users. It blew me away.

Imagine how this technology could change the future of education. As many school boards start to bring the axe down on tech programs they now deem "unsafe", with a little more time and investment in this technology we could start to use it in our traditional tech shops as a substitute for the traditional teaching methods. I'm sure there will a large number of opponents that will say nothing can replace the tried and true traditional teaching methods of actually doing the training in a real environment, but digital virtual environment technology would surely have The Workplace Safety Board, School Boards and Insurance Companies sleeping a little better at night.