The Benefits of Remote VR Working and Learning

As we find ourselves asked to work and learn remotely if possible, how can VR help us do so? What are the realistic benefits and shortcomings of using Virtual Reality to work and learn in physical isolation? Let’s have a look.

Can VR replace in-person work settings?

This depends on what kind of work you’re doing. There are a quite a few virtual collaboration and workspace apps out there now, some of which are featured in this Road to VR article, that aim to allow effective remote conferences, white-boarding, designing, and many other common office tasks traditionally done in person. The goal is to gain the productivity boost of in-person work environments while avoiding the pitfalls of remote meetings – I’m looking at you, sketchy conference calls. Even Facebook, the owner of popular VR platform Oculus, is placing a lot of emphasis and development efforts on their virtual workplace solution. The question is, does it work?

Well short answer, yes – but we still have some software and hardware challenges to solve. We haven’t had a chance to personally test many of the VR remote work applications however the experiences we have had in a shared virtual space with other people is very compelling and certainly beats talking over each other on a call. While solutions to things like body language and facial cues are still being explored with VR avatars, the benefit of a team all having access to powerful virtual tools and using them together in the same VR space has the potential to actually accelerate productivity.

The benefit of working in VR is sharing your ideas and solutions can happen immediately with the added power of being able to physically alter your environment and tools in any way. Imagine being in a conference room with a model building on the table. It would be difficult for you to make changes on the fly in real life, but in VR you could not only manipulate the model on the table – you could go inside it with the rest of the team, get feedback, and further refine your changes. This ability to rapidly modify and experience your modifications is just one of the many ways VR can enhance the workplace, all from remote locations.

That’s great, but what if I don’t work in an office?

Clearly there are many jobs that have to be done in person. While VR won’t be able to replace the on-site nature of these jobs, it can benefit them greatly with training. If you’re interested in VR training, check out our extensive post on it here.

Can schools and universities use VR for remote learning?

Definitely. We know from experience with our clients that VR has very high retention rates and is an incredibly effective tool for teaching. So if we combine the aforementioned multi-user VR workspace technology with education in mind, we get virtual classrooms that anyone with a headset can access. The issue facing this right now is primarily broad access to the hardware and the breadth of content available. A quick google search will show you a few of the VR education platforms out there that are aiming to provide more and more content for varying subjects and levels of education, which will only keep growing over time. However, we would love to see more schools and universities investing in creating VR curriculums. This allows for incredibly advanced remote learning as well as the benefit of high engagement and retention rates for the next generation of students. As you can probably tell, we are huge fans of VR education and would love to see a future where classrooms and learning aren’t limited by physical space.

To sum it up – VR is an excellent tool for remote work and learning with basically endless potential. It’s also relatively new technology and will require companies and schools to invest in the hardware and software to accelerate its benefits. The good news is those benefits are additive so as we create more and more useful tools and content, the overall library of potential VR solutions for the workforce and students will expand exponentially. That’s an exciting future that we’re happy to be a part of creating.