The possibility for virtual reality (VR) and related immersive technologies to help within the field of education has been discussed on VRFocus many times since we first went live in 2014. Over the last few years we’ve covered many stories about all kinds of education programmes not just in educating schoolchildren but adults too, both in a professional training capacity and as part of a more casual learning experience when tied to institutions such as art galleries and museums. There’s even been some crossover between the fields of education and entertainment, a good example being the work of World of Tanks developers Wargaming, whose ‘Special Projects Division’ works with institutions to educate people about their subject matter.
Whilst both augmented reality (AR) and VR are both used for education perhaps the most common way we see it being used is with 360 degree video, and one video platform focused on learning experiences just announced a new upgrade to bring 360 into the mix.
The service in question in Panopto, a Seattle based firm whose platform specialises in hosting content for universities and businesses. As part of what they are terming a major update for the service as a whole, which also includes the addition of speech recognition in nine languages to their inside-video search technology Smart Search and sees it integrated with both
Rev.com and Verbit.a captioning providers. 360 degree video is added for the first time to allow its customers to upload 360 degree compatible footage and view it either by a compatible VR head mounted display (HMD) or Panopto’s own video player.
“When we originally designed Panopto, our goal was to provide people with an online learning experience that replicated the classroom environment. Support for VR video is the next logical step toward this vision.” Explained Eric Burns, the Co-Founder and CEO of Panopto. “Enabling people to actively explore and engage in their learning environment simply by tilting their phone or turning their head.”
Panopto’s main goal is to helps businesses and universities create searchable video libraries of their institutional knowledge. Recording lectures and talks, seminars and conferences, discussions, performances and other related events. Celebrating its tenth year this year, the service has now clocked up so many videos Panopto claim it to be the “the largest repository of expert learning videos in the world”.
VRFocus will be keeping you up to date with further developments with Panopto’s 360 degree service as we get them.
via Mint VR