How VR Could Supplement Iso-immersion Training

The military has used simulators for a long time to prepare sailors, marines, airmen, and soldiers for real world danger. Vehicle handling, tactical maneuvering and kinetic training have long been the themes for simulator tech.

Meanwhile, for many years, DoD has also been conducting very impressive language and cultural training integrated with tactical training, using live role players, translators and instructors. Mass casualty exercises, shoot houses, culture villages, and other live action models allow the student to enter an isolated, immersive environment for training. These can be manpower intensive, and in some cases, highly variable depending on the talent of the role players or translators. They can also be expensive to the unit being trained, requiring travel, per diem, and scheduled time away from home base; and expensive to scale to the total force, being geographically based. Supplementing iso-immersion training with interactive 360 video scenarios could allow for a much wider student base to experience important cultural training prior to deployment.

Why video instead of a game?

One of the sayings in military training is "train as you fight". The idea is - get as close to a realistic scenario as possible in order to train the student towards actual capabilities (i.e. live fire exercises). The temptation with technology + education is always to veer away from this principle. We can get shiny-object syndrome and forget to keep things practical. The dangerous result can be students who come to understand that the training is disconnected from the actual mission, and they don't take it seriously. Conversely, when students go through good training, and they pass on the word that it was good preparation for what they actually did in the field, that is a big win.

The temptation with VR is to look at the hundreds of gamified and game based learning options that exist, and assume that because they are cutting edge, they are the best, but these are the wrong place to start for culture training. Culture and language training, more than any other type of training, benefit from human to human interaction during the training. Certainly, memorization and information transfer are important, but the cultural and linguistic fluency that works best in the field is the result of hours listening and watching and speaking to people.

It is important to note that many VR companies that might have the budget to sell into government (which has a very long and expensive sales cycle) might end up being higher end technology with bells and whistles attached. Ironically, for culture training, some of the most effective VR based training may exist down at the lower end of the technology because 360 video is cheaper to produce than realistic looking games, and yet is still the most realistic way to visualize cultural interactions.

Imagine this: You go to a language instruction class on base. The instructor gives you a VR headset and you can hear the instructor's voice in the background as you put it on. You are now immersed in a video experience on the ground in another country. An experienced translator is in the video, walking along in front of you, talking to you about what you are about to see. The translator then introduces you to a local leader and begins translating a conversation. You feel as if you are there. You start to notice body language cues from the local leader and look over at the face of your translator. He looks nervous. You hear your classroom instructor in the background telling you to pause the video. You take off the headset and the classroom instructor asks you a few questions about what you have observed so far, what words you were picking up in the conversation, what body language, etc. The other class members share what they noticed.

Could it be interactive?

The immersive quality of this type of video is obvious, and depending on the production quality, the price could be very reasonable to scale, but could it also be interactive? There are a number of ways that interactive features could be layered over simple videos to create pauses and reflection points, or choose-your-own-adventure branched videos that allow for a central video/place to take you in a multitude of potential directions. However, I think a good place to start would be with a video that is not interactive, but still well produced. The act of looking around in a space in 180 or 360 degrees is in fact interaction, and this much makes it immersive, so that is a good start. Limiting motion sickness (which comes from clumsy camera work and bad hardware), and using documentary styled footage of real people, is probably a more important consideration at first rather than enhanced interactivity.

Could it tie into an LMS?

Yes, VR training, if interactive, could certainly tie into an LMS. VR headsets are just displays, so as long as the video has a software link up to an LMS, it could certainly update your training record when you complete the video or whatever task is required. The ultimate goal should be to allow for training at home that ties into service record connected learning management systems.

To train on culture or language or both?

If you don't already speak a foreign language, then it might take you a long time and some considerable money in training to get to fluency. Nevertheless, language learning is an important part of readiness for many, and investment in that capability is important. Cultural training, on the other hand, might take much less time, and according to some, might be even more critical for certain missions. Of course, many people will say that in order to learn a culture, you must also understand the language, or vice versa. It is certainly true that language comprehension is highly dependent on cultural contexts, especially as you advance; and it is also true that learning a culture can be limited by a lack of language training; however, cultural training, if done well and for the mission at hand, might be much more affordable, effective, and scalable to the total force.