 Hello everyone and welcome to the 2 o'clock to 2.50 p.m. session of the 2019 Open Simulator Community Conference. In this session we are excited to introduce a presentation called Virtual Reality vs Virtual World Smackdown. Our speakers are Valerie Hill, Marie Vance and Bethany Winslow. I will briefly introduce our panel speakers today and please check out the website found at conference.opensimulator.org for full speaker bios, details of sessions and the full schedule of events. Dr. Valerie Hill, in world as Valbrarian Greg is a library and formation science educator with a research focus on the intersection of information literacy and global digital participatory culture and serves as director of the Community Virtual Library. Dr. Marie Vance, in world known as Am Vance Lapis, holds a PhD in computer science and works as a research scientist at Hewlett Packard. Bethany Winslow is a volunteer with the Community Virtual Library and an instructional designer at San Jose State University. In her years in virtual worlds she has found that much more is needed to help educators understand how vibrant is the history of virtual worlds in education. This session is being live streamed and recorded so if you have questions or comments during the session you may send tweets to at opensimcc with the hashtag OSCC19. Welcome everyone, let's begin the session. Let the Smackdown begin. Great, welcome everyone. Hello. Let's let this Smackdown get started. And we already have heard that our two contestants in the ring are Marie Vance and Bethany Winslow. We are going to get started here. As Galen said, I'm the director of the Community Virtual Library in Second Life Avocon and in Kitely. So let's get started. We're going to talk today about VR versus virtual worlds. And our first factor that we want to debate regarding virtual reality and virtual worlds is persistence. So I'm going to start with Marie and I'm going to ask Marie what you think about persistence in VR. When educators invest in a virtual world in 3D or VR, they want to know that their time and money will not just disappear in a year or two with all of their hard work. So are virtual reality worlds today persistent enough for educators to invest in them? Well, persistence is always tricky when it comes to the long term of anything digital, right? And VR platforms are VR platforms are no different, especially because the medium is still developing and evolving. This means a single standard or preferred environment for education or anything else has yet to emerge. It's somewhat of a gamble to put all of your resources into a single VR platform at this time and be guaranteed that it will exist mostly, you know, the same in five to 10 years from now, right? However, because many of the VR platforms are still in beta, then there's a great time. It's a great time right now to be involved in VR because developers of these new worlds are more likely to work with us in order to meet our educational requirements. And there's a couple of there's a couple of platforms out there that are already doing that, for example, engage to work with us in order to meet our educational requirements and therefore make their virtual worlds more relevant. Many virtual reality platforms are also free to access and use at this time for this for the same reason. And this means that you will be able to require fewer to almost no monetary resources for your administration to get started in a VR world. So my recommendation in choosing a VR world with persistence in mind is to look into the worlds that are associated with larger, persisting companies, for example, Alt Space VR, which is now owned by Microsoft and Sansar, which is owned by Linden Labs. Most importantly, you'll want to make sure you document and save any critical builds or experiences you create in these worlds so that you can recreate them elsewhere if you need to. This is a best practice for all virtual worlds, including VR ones. Additionally, familiarize yourself with the differences between 3D worlds and VR and be sure that when you use a VR world, you are using its unique advantages to its fullest extent. And here's a URL that you can go look at the key differences between virtual worlds and virtual reality. So this will help you justify your use of a virtual world or a virtual reality world over a 3D world to your administration if they value persistence above everything else. Okay, thank you, Marie. Let's move on to Bethany about that point, Bethany persistence. Do you what do you think about 3D virtual worlds? Are they more persistent than today's virtual reality worlds? Well, virtual reality virtual worlds have a stable and persistent, you know, persistent history. I mean, just look at the numbers. You know, Second Life, 16 years, Opensim, 12 years, Oculus Rift, three years. So there's... Let's see. Let's see. My HUD doesn't seem to be working. My Speak Easy HUD. I don't think I have this working right. I'm so sorry. Most VR is in beta. And, you know, it remains to be seen what will come to dominate the market. And it's certainly not something to invest all our time with. Not all these platforms offer persistent places. For example, Engage is a platform that's promoted as educational. And it lets you enter the same room every time if you want. But it's not the same thing at all as a true persistent space. The objects you rest there are not there in a new session. The persistence of place is what has allowed for so many different tribes of people to evolve into communities. And this is something that happens organically. For example, who would have ever predicted a sub culture of tinies? Cultures and communities can't be created by a single person and nor can they be created by a single company or by a single game or a single standalone immersive experience. Culture and communities both need persistence and time in order to really develop. And the fact of the matter is virtual worlds, which are desktop VR, they've been bringing together people and creative things and letting them stew long enough to develop a rich flavor. VR is like the new kid on the block. It's certainly exciting, but there's literally dozens of different social VR platforms with different participants, and they're all separated out from one another. So there's just no there there yet. You know, literally there's no sense of you know, place. So tinkering and persistence virtual environments with higher educators is an opportunity for experiential preparation that I think is essential for people who would expect to design immersive learning experiences with head mounted display VR. And I think that it's important to network and collaborate with a broader community beyond our own institutions. I've I've attended lots of remote conferences, and I've never made a real world connection with another develop, you know, another educator in that way. So it's it's these in world events where we continually run into each other at these different events where we invest our time and learning grow and this this community has been born out of persistence. So even though there's a lot of hype that suggests that head mounted display is the only kind of real VR, I think virtual worlds are likely to remain relevant for a long time to come. Think about it, you know, the very first film by the Lumiere Brothers was in 1895. That's over 100 years ago. We're well past the golden age of television in Hollywood, and well into a world where we can watch and create billions of hours of YouTube videos. Why has the humble book persisted? It's because different mediums allow for different ways to interact. And, you know, you know, content, and that's it's just there's no one perfect medium head mounted display is is a great medium. But it's not going to be the one to rule us all. I have a couple of different resources you might want to check out if you want to read more on this. Excellent, excellent points there. So I think we're going to stick with you here, Bethany, on the next point and continue our second point we want to address is accessibility. Accessibility right now. So Bethany, another major concern for educators is accessibility. We want to make sure that our students that they can get into these worlds, regardless of their financial status, their disabilities or their operating systems. So how accessible are virtual worlds today? You know, it's not uncommon to hear people talk excitedly about what we'll be able to do in VR, as if social VR hasn't been a long time in the making and perfectly accessible to the masses, not only right now, but for well over a decade. Some people jumping on the VR bandwagon with head mounted displays think they're paving the way as far as immersive learning. But seriously, I go to a lot of conferences and I meet educators all over the country who've never been in a virtual environment. As I said, a lot of VR platforms are in beta and testing the desktop versions I found multiple, you know, you know, multiple experiences where I've been booted out or, you know, had a nav the navigation is buggy, even with an Oculus Rift every different world you go into as a different way of using the controller. And don't get me wrong, I'm super excited about VR. But it's just not ready for prime time yet. It has to be more reliable. I think adoption is much further out than we want to really admit. Not just talking about ordinary accessibility. But in terms of, you know, if you haven't seen like the dragster's documentary, our digital cells, my avatar is me. This is a really good example that illustrates how virtual worlds are accessible to anyone right now. And they don't require anything more than a laptop with a decent graphics card and reliable high speed internet. And it might not be 100% accessible to everyone in third world countries, but it's far more accessible for learning to people in those countries now than VR and headsets are. Another thing about accessibility, you know, where's all the studies that shows how long we can be in VR about motion sickness or where we might be assuming the supremacy of the visual aspect and short changing other modalities for delivering information. We do have those studies and know a lot about desktop VR because and we know that people can spend all night in world because we've been doing this and researching it for decades. And Kevin Fienden from Abathom did a presentation a while back at the 10th annual the car event. We talked about Gartner's hype cycle. He said, those of us in virtual worlds are very familiar with it, because we've already gone through the trauma disillusionment. And, you know, he's not the only one who talks about this, you know, Philip Rosdale just had a post on Mondays talking about VR has several serious challenges to overcome before it can be used in a highly productive way. He says we've got to have a see-through display, a way to be really productive with, you know, being able to type on a regular keyboard. And that the visuals got to match the qualities we have on our desktops. So head mounted displays also need to be much lighter weight and wearable for more than like half an hour. Again, here's some additional resources, you might want to just check out some of these, these links here. Excellent. Excellent, Bethany. And so let's move over to Marie continuing on that same topic of accessibility. What about VR worlds? Would you say that virtual reality worlds are as easy to access today as the virtual worlds that Bethany just mentioned? Well, headsets are becoming more and more affordable and mainstream. But I have to admit that headsets are not yet mainstream affordable enough for everyone for, for, for, for a lot of people. However, many virtual reality platforms also offer desktop VR. So this means that you can introduce faculty and students to VR worlds without actually using the headsets, right? The immersion will not be as intense as with the headset, but lack of headset is not an obstacle for most social VR worlds today. Additionally, schools and libraries are beginning to purchase headsets to be shared among user, which means that many of those individuals will have access to a headset even if they can't buy one on their own. And on the topic of compatibility, there are VR worlds that work with both Mac and Windows operating systems. So for example, here, Sansar and AltSpace VR. AltSpace VR even now operates on the Oculus Quest, which means you can access the world without accessing a desktop computer at all. Okay, interesting. So Marie, let's stick with you again for this next point. Let's talk about point number three, open education resources, OER and non proprietary programming and software. So thanks. And let's just talk about that point educators are known for fostering an atmosphere that's open when it comes to sharing knowledge and technologies. Are there any virtual reality OERs open education resources or non proprietary standards or platforms out there? Well, there are open source platforms today, the biggest one, of course, being high fidelity. The Firestorm viewer, which is an open source virtual world viewer also has a headset option for OpenSim. Here is a link to an article that talks about that. And although it is in beta, Open Sim users with compatible headsets are using that VR viewer successfully. And as I mentioned earlier, because many of these platforms are still emerging and in beta, we do have the opportunity to work with creators and developers on the creation of open educational resources that fit our needs. In the case of existing platforms, high fidelity and Kitely are good examples where the creators and developers are involved with the software and are available to contact regarding developing specific tools for education. It's also worth mentioning that OFVR, a movement founded to create a universal open source VR ecosystem for technologies across different brands and companies. Here's a here's a link to that. It's a predominantly for gaming, but it does show that you can create open source content for VR. So and furthermore, it's backed by major companies like HP, whoever they are, and Intel. Oh, lots to think about there, Marie. So let's move on to Bethany about this point number three. Bethany, where do virtual worlds stand regarding open education resources and other non proprietary software? Well, much of the development in VR does seem to be driven by gaming entertainment or involves a big company like Facebook, which owns Oculus Rift and will be launching its own social VR platform in 2020. And my big takeaway from some of the developer conference this year was giddiness about how much product was flying off the shelves. Don't get me wrong, I own an Oculus Rift and I love it. But how often has education been sold on the latest and greatest techno gizmo? I think as soon as a particular device or platform pulls ahead of the pack, we're going to see initiatives to get them in every kid's backpack, just like iPads and Chromebooks. But I think educators really need to be at the at the center of creating solutions, not just being consumers. So there's a real need for high level digital literacy. And unfortunately, that sort of thing takes more time than buying the promise of a quick solution. OpenSIM worlds, however, are a great example of organic, democratic and centralized digital maker spaces, where we've got a mature culture of tinkering. There's amazing builds and simulations and much of it is totally open for anyone to visit or send their students to. And unlike many of the proprietary VR platforms, OpenSIM will build, modify and share our content easily. We do have an opportunity to collaborate well beyond our own institutions and unmediated by commerce. Imagine if we did create worlds and simulations and share them be a creative commons licensing so that others could tweak and build upon them. I really envision the Community Virtual Library becoming sort of a GitHub repository, where that kind of crowdsourced VR content development becomes the norm. But even if people don't share the content they create here, it's like just enable hypergrading on their region. That means we can take or send our students to these locations, just like we send them to a library or a museum in a physical world. And we really need to advocate for leveraging our different skills and expertise to collaborate globally and not just pay developers to build stuff for us because that ends up staying in our own little classroom or own little institution. The future of the world is open. That same culture is why we invested in public libraries in the US. It's the same culture that's brought us Wikipedia and the open source movement, creative commons licensing. Even the Netflix show diagnosis is a perfect example of the power of crowdsourcing information. But this open world is not going to just be handed to us. We're going to be competing against edutainment consultants and vendors that'll crowd us out if we let them. We have to fight for a future of ODR in the virtual worlds with and with VR. And then there's some additional reading. If you want to check out a couple different things here. Yes, yes, yes, Bethany such great important points about virtual worlds. So let's move on to our next point. And we're going to stick with you again here, Bethany moving to point number four, the importance of community communities of practice. What about that? How robust are the educational compute communities and networks in virtual worlds? Well, I've already touched on the community of practice topic a little bit here. But I think this is where virtual worlds really shine. VR just doesn't have a community of practice yet. Sure, there are some VR platforms with meetings and events and lots of chatter on boards like discord, but that can hardly be considered a community of practice. There's just not been enough time. The Community Virtual Library in Vakara from San Jose State side school. Hello, I'm I work there are just two good examples of organizations that have had the time and the cross pollinization that has resulted in a mature community. In fact, Pat Franks, the coordinator of iSchools Mara program has a chapter about this and teaching and learning in virtual environments. And it addresses this specifically her chapter describes how the community of practice evolved organically over time. It was not planned. It simply emerged. So we have to think about the amount of time it takes to develop interest in virtual worlds peaked about a decade ago, and our community has consolidated down, but it's very robust and very mature because of that time. And we've had a lot of relevant expertise that to share about the values of virtual worlds in teaching and learning. But the same just can't be said for VR. expanding on this bit, I want to mention the culture of virtual worlds because I think this is critical. I call this Burning Man in cyberspace. It's this social aspect that I think is most likely to be overlooked by educators, but virtual environments have a unique culture that like the community of practice takes time to develop. And it's something people need time to acclimate to. So learning in the physical world does not take place in a vacuum. It's situated historically, culturally, and socioeconomically, researchers have talked about the tight knit communities that have risen in second life because of the affordances of virtual worlds. And I think these are subtle things that we haven't even had time to scratch the surface of them. In terms of the possibilities for educational value, virtual worlds are role play writ large. And I think there's aspects of embodying self that are still not entirely understood. And without spending the time to tinker and play here in virtual worlds, we can't really know how to leverage these for learning. So for example, one of the affordances is, you know, how we might benefit from not representing ourselves as a human or, you know, under what circumstances might we want to be an animal or a different gender? You know, that you need time and to be involved in a community practice to get the experience, to start thinking about these or to talk with others about it. But for goodness sake, we still default to using doors and windows in world, which if you think about it's ridiculous, even after all this time in a virtual environment, we still default to an analog mindset. So I think educators who want to design quality immersive experiences in the future in VR really are going to be impoverished if they don't have experience with using desktop VR right now. And here's a few resources if you want to read more on this. So important to talk about communities and how essential they, they are. So let's thank you so much, Bethany, let's move to Marie. You've mentioned that VR is still developing in many ways. Does it have a community of practice yet? Well, despite the newness of VR, there are already communities of practice in virtual reality worlds. Alt Space VR is the best example I know of. A large group of educators meets their monthly to share their efforts and interests regarding virtual reality for education. They also have a Discord channel and a Facebook group. High fidelity and Sansar have the benefit of creators familiar with with Second Life or or OpenSim. And high fidelity is based on OpenSim and Sansar is developed by by Lyndon labs, right? So because of this, there is some overlap among educational communities in both virtual reality and 3D virtual worlds. Avocon is a great example of this. Vakara and the community virtual library are also exploring virtual reality worlds, which expands our community of practice into virtual reality. There is also a large community of practice in the gaming industry when it comes to VR. High fidelity. I didn't realize that high fidelity closed this week, but I do have a version of it running at my work behind the firewall. And right now we're doing a lot of work with it. And I know maybe if they're not going to support it anymore, I believe that there are people who are still working in it using it and trying to expand it. There are there is also a large community of practice in the gaming industry when it comes to virtual reality. Although we don't always think of gaming, you know, Dom zombie shooting, for example, that we don't think of it as being compatible with education, these communities of passionate gamers and game developers drive technology forward. Their end goals aren't always the same as educators, but it's worth engaging in conversations with these developers and players as they imagine new heights and uses for technologies that will ultimately benefit education. Excellent. Great points to think about there, Marie. So we'll stick with you again, Marie, on this next point, number five. Our final point is on building, building both independently and collaboratively. So in a recent Vakara survey, educators in both VR and virtual worlds emphasized the importance of building both independently and collaboratively as a class. Is this kind of building possible in VR? Building is a tricky, tricky topic for VR worlds right now. This is because many of these world environments are built in specialized game engines like Unity 3D or Unreal Engine, but which are available for free, but have a learning curve for non computer scientists. And here is a here's a link if you want to learn more about that. And many developers expect their users to develop content using the same software rather than using the VR platform itself. There are some exceptions to this, for example, Sansar, all space VR engage in high fidelity all have ways to design in world. That is, the developers have created an extensive list of pre built objects like trees, houses, animals and that kind of thing that allow you that you can choose from. So you're not creating these objects from scratch in world, but you can manipulate them and place them in world to design a unique environment. And there are actually a couple of other ones that you can bring bring your own design, like your own 3D models into, for example, science base. This this is similar to many builders in the Second Life and OpenSim, who who acquire pre built items from shops and the marketplace, rather than building from scratch using primes or mash. In fact, building with primes even in Second Life and OpenSim is becoming outdated due to the blocky nature of these objects. And compared to more elaborate mesh pieces. So the folks creating these more up to date objects in Second Life and in OpenSim are already using software like Unity, 3D and Blender. It is possible that the future of building from scratch for virtual worlds, including virtual reality worlds will require game, require a game engine and 3D software. I must admit that while users can design independently in most virtual reality worlds and game engines, there are there are less there are less robust options for collaborative building. So here is an example for Unity team, which allows people to collaborate in a group similar to using Google Docs. But it but it's free option only allows for up to three people at a time. And this means that a teacher would need to split students into groups of three for collaborative learning. One big thought to remember is that educators can work with the developers of these of these virtual reality worlds. So if you value collaborative building and building in world from scratch, now is the time to speak up. Right, that does seem like a bit of an obstacle to creativity. Hmm, we'll think about that. Let's ask Bethany what what you think about virtual worlds. How do virtual world educators incorporate building into their 3D classrooms? Well, we have a ton of great examples of building independently and correct collaboratively right here in open to him. And this ability to build and share our work is what sets virtual worlds for like this apart from some of the actually much of the standalone VR that you Valerie called, you know, disposable kind of experiences. And a lot of the VR seems to be top down design driven. It's funny, I was first drawn to virtual worlds by another instructional designer, who's a good friend, but we quickly went our separate ways to explore the things that were important to us. And she went right into fantasy role playing with mermaids and pirates and socializing and I quickly bought land and wanted to be alone designing my environment. But the nature of virtual worlds like opens them in Second Life is that they have no goal. And I think this is going to be continued to make the be their greatest strength. I can see a very bright financial future and VR gaming and I think gamification is a solid instructional strategy. But I keep coming back to this fundamental strength in the way virtual worlds seem very different for most of the VR that I see. And again, it's that Burning Man aspect, it's the zero agenda and blank canvas. It forces us to find meaning and purpose. Like burners go out to the world and apply it in the physical world where there's nothing. There's not even a pebble on the ground. All that you find there is what you bring to it, your attitude, your ideas, even your prejudices, whatever you bring is, you know, shapes your experience and it's wildly freeing, but it's also wildly terrifying to some people. And that's just the way it is confronting the reality that our existence is essentially meaningless except for what we ascribe to it. This is the essence of what it means to be an artist and a human. Creativity coach Eric Miesel says art is simply meaning making. This is our highest and best work to make meaning out of nothing but our own hands, minds, and raw interactions with the environment and each other. The passive approach is to let meaning be delivered to us whether in holy books or a prefabricated economically mediated experience. And I really worry that too many people, educators especially may be prone to devalue that empty canvas. I worry about devaluing the essential messiness of creation, the sense of play and silliness you find in places like Burning Man and the virtual world where the tiniest might run amok. You know, but tinkering and making culture is a wash in this spirit. I go to an arts collective in the physical world and I see it. I went to Burning Man and I found it there. And in the midst of very serious pandemic work here in virtual worlds, I see the same spirit. And it's essential that we be the advocates for what we value here at desktop VR. We have to push back against the trend that will will come down to bear down upon us against people who will be all too willing to sacrifice inconvenience of tinkering and authenticity in the time that that that can't demand for things that are just flashy, expedient and more shallow. It's easier to be a passive consumer of cremated content and I don't care how immersive it is. It's kind of like special effects in movies. Do 3D glasses and special effects or other gimmicks compensate for a crappy story? Of course not. We're immersed in a grand narrative here that all of us are writing together in a virtual world. And I can imagine a future filled with standalone immersive experiences that will be sold to us as educational. We need to identify when those things are not demanding enough of us because we know what virtual worlds and that's what virtual reality is ultimately capable of. But we're going to be so tempted to let VR vendors cater to serving us in our well worn comfort of our little silos. But I think all of us here know from some experience that you know, confronting the blank canvas and having to build out of nothing brings out our best both individually and collectively. I've got a couple of resources for you to check out on that topic. Very well put, Bethany, the importance of being able to tinker and create both individually and collaboratively. Such an important thing. So in conclusion, we're talking here about many differences as well as many similarities between virtual worlds and virtual reality with the headsets, the head mounted displays. And there's something to be learned from both mediums. Great job exploring this territory, Bethany and Marie for educators to prosper now and in the future. We will need more than a passing acquaintance with both. So to that end at the community virtual library, we are exploring the head mounted displays. Bethany and Marie and I have visited numerous virtual reality worlds, both desktop and headset. And this needs to be an ongoing debate to understand the benefits and the advantages as well as the obstacles. We need to get our hands dirty and consider and practice pedagogy and design within these worlds. Not just understand and experiment with the hardware. So thank you all for attending OSCC's virtual worlds versus virtual reality smackdown. And I believe we have a little better time for some questions. Feel free to type a question in chat and we'll do our best. Bethany and Marie, you can take your stance on VR and virtual worlds into the questioning stage. I'd like to ask one question of the audience. How many of you in the audience have tried VR with a head mounted display? If you want to type a yes in chat. I'd like to know what everybody's time limit is before they get a headache. Oh, yes, yes. You could be in there for a while and it does get a little a little disconcerting and it feels a little weird if you stay in there too long. Yeah, I can do about 40 minutes. Totally no. We're here. You can go to a conference all day and you get that sense of presence, but your brain isn't being kind of overloaded with that weird sensation. I get slightly nauseous and yeah, I get slightly nauseous after too much time. Well, some of them just don't have the, they haven't fixed that problem. So, for example, I have a horrible time in science space, but I have absolutely no problem whatsoever in engage. Right. There's different, different environments and it seems a little bit different in that, but that's another obstacle. Of course, we're used to a high learning, steep learning curve in these worlds, but the hands that held the handsets, they're different in every world that I go to with the head mounted display. So I'm always having to learn new things with the handset. I think some of the best points you pointed out though is the sustainability here where you can come back again and again and grow as a community rather than just go in and say, oh, isn't this beautiful, but it doesn't really continue to grow together. Yeah. And one collection of people, you know, in one space that it does not mean it's a community. A community practice really does take time to mature. And it's, yeah. I have a question if there's time. I think there is. As a pretty much a non VR user only because I still react, you know, I have the physical reactions to it. I also found that the few times that I was able to use it, that I felt that it was more of an individual individualizing experience for me rather than a community orienting experience for me. And it had for me, partly to do with the fact that I couldn't see all of me. You know, here we are in a virtual world and I can sign myself. I can see all of you, meaning your whole body, you know, the third person. And I wonder if you've run across any sort of anything like this that is either an obstacle or has been overcome or is even a topic that has been addressed. If that even makes sense. It does. And I think we totally agree. When I'm with that headset, it's very isolating. It isn't the same as here where the world goes on and on and on and on. And you know that I could I could fly here and there and go to all. It's huge. There it's more of a disposable bubble. I'm inside this little tiny space and it looks really cool, but it's it doesn't. It's just a completely different. So I think my takeaway on that point today is that there's there's a big difference between virtual worlds and VR and both of them have a purpose and we need to identify the best purpose of each and understand that and virtual worlds to me are not going to go away. They have a huge advantage and purpose. I agree Val. That's what I meant when I said that you know that a lot of the scenes top down driven. You go into a world and it tells you where you can click. You can't just you can't navigate a space on your own. It's it's controlled. It's it's been designed by somebody else very top down and it's entirely the opposite with virtual worlds with the zero agenda. Well, the the biggest problem with virtual reality is that we're so we're used to flying here being able to fly being able to move around as like like look at our avatars and run around whereas in virtual reality if you tried to fly or you tried to run you that's definitely a nauseating inducing. They haven't quite figured out how to how to solve that. So there is there are a lot of things that we are very used to doing here that are they haven't solved in virtual reality yet. One of the best things I think about virtual reality is 360 videos. Yeah, but that's that to me is like just that's passive. You know, I mean I just I just don't think that's again. That's just a passive thing. It's I think like that's like a 3D goggles saying oh here watch a movie in in 3D and if it's a crappy movie people will go see the 2D version. Like it's it's it's I don't know. It's that's I think that's a very passive but I do think I do think there's lots of there are lots of times when you went when a 360 video especially for educational purposes is is a is a good idea. So for example if you're if you're introducing a place right without having to to do much you can see the most important aspects of a place. Yeah, but like Lyra says, it's just it's not VR. Yes, of course. Yeah, of course it's I don't know I'm just like and a movie has to be it has to offer something different from a book and a VR experience has to offer something different than just you know, I watch 360 videos. I can pan all around and look at the environment and get what I need out of it but VR really truly immersive experience is about interacting with the world and with people not just being in a standalone bubble but that is the I think the social aspect and the time and the tinkering and the community practice. I really think that that's where virtual worlds shine and will continue to shine. Well, I just want to make just want to make clear that what I am saying here is is I think 360 videos is to be one of the options in in in virtual world in virtual reality. That's that's all I'm saying. Yeah, I have kind of a spin off question about that if I could and that has to do with the possibility and this might be a dumb question because I don't use VR and so I don't know all of the things that are available with it. But the idea of seeing one self in the third person with other people in the third person. Is that something that's happening now with VR or is that something that's possible and do you think that would make a difference? Yes, yeah, I think that's a great question and I do like the fact that you have mirrors in in a virtual world where you can see yourself as an avatar. But I also think that's something that we do natively right here on desktop VR tanning around looking at our avatars. Yeah, so I think that's a great question. Yeah, and there are not all the virtual reality worlds allow it but there are virtual reality worlds that you can see yourself as third person or first person you you you decide you choose. But I agree with you with the questioner that that because I think that that offers some instructional usefulness the ability to it's sort of like a metacognitive way of thinking you're embodying something but then you're also observing yourself embodying something instead of just you know being immersed in a headset and not really having that meta awareness of yourself. Great, thank you. Well, thanks for coming everyone. This was fun. Yes, thanks everybody. Thank you everyone. Are there any more questions? Very interesting, a lot of information. A lot of potential for the future. I'm sure that we as a creative species will figure out how to use it to our best advantage. That's true. Okay, well, thank you. Thank you, Valerie, Marie and Bethany for a terrific presentation and a great bout debate. Thank you. Thanks everyone. As a reminder to our audience, you can see what's coming up on the conference schedule at conference dot open simulator dot org. Following this session, there will be a 30 minute break and then the next session will begin at 3 30 p.m. In this keynote region and is entitled creativity panel. Also, we encourage you to visit the OSCC 19 poster Expo in the OSCC Expo three region to find accompanying information on presentations and explore the hyper grid tour resources in OSCC Expo two region along with sponsor and crowd funder booths located throughout all of the OSCC Expo regions. Thank you again to our speakers and the audience.