The COM345 – New Media and Health Communication class has a unit on Virtual Reality. Virtual Reality is mostly used for games and other types of entertainment, but it can also be used in education. The TCNJ Office of Instructional Design acquired 3 types of VR headsets allowing the TCNJ faculty to use them for their classes.
For the New Media and Health Communication class, Kelsey Cogan (2020 Public Health Major) worked with Drew Hopkins from OID to find applications for the class. VR can be used to assist with procedures in operating rooms, orthopedic medicine, eye conditions diagnosis and treatment.
The students got the chance to explore and do a hands-on knee replacement. Santiago Yacovino noted that “the VR application to perform knee surgery was by far my favorite application of VR technology. The immersive environment I was in allowed me to grab tools from the surgery tables and I had to create various incisions and installations in the virtual patient’s knee to complete the surgery.”
Other uses of VR technology are stroke recovery, physical therapy, rehabilitation, psychotherapy, relaxation, pain control. The students explored a Tai chi application, relaxed on the beach and hiked in a forest. They also got to experience the world from the point of view of a person with a stroke. This allowed them to build empathy that is so necessary for health communication and medical settings.
As Dessa Reed (2020 Communication Studies Major) put it: “The Virtual Reality (VR) Lab was eye-opening, both literally and figuratively! It is not too often students have the opportunity to interact with the material we are currently learning about. Yet, because we had the opportunity at our fingertips in this VR Lab, I have an interest in learning about the data, engineering, science, and complexities of VR.”
Contributed by Ileana Balcu