TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) — Florida State University's Florida Institute for Child Welfare uses virtual reality to train students with scenarios, preparing them to serve children and families.
- FSU uses virtual reality to train child welfare workers through real-life scenarios they may encounter.
- Through the controlled learning environment, students have the opportunity to train with immediate feedback.
- Watch the video below to see what the VR training looks like for students involved.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
At the Florida Institute for Child Welfare at FSU, there has been a different way of learning taking place. Where the investment in virtual reality isn't just helping students learn but the whole community for the better.
Kristina Finch, Associate Director of Professional Development at the Florida Institute for Child Welfare, said, “The idea of the Florida Institute for Child Welfare is to really provide technical assistance to these other organizations to develop them to help them to really get in tune with the innovations that are out there.”
And right now, those innovations are Virtual Reality, and Program Manager Kyle Cook told me why it’s so special
“The reality we are able to potray in the VR headset is even greater than what we can do on a computer screen or a video monitor in the room you get sights and sounds in a 360 degree view of a home…it fully immerses them and then the VR headset blocks out everything else going on around them, and they start to feel like they’re there,” said Cook.
And when you're in the goggles, students fully immerse themselves in a controlled learning environment where there are 16 quadrillion different scenarios through one of the experiences, and there are 2 trillion scenarios through another. No two students experience the same thing
Cook added, “These are tools that are used in industries that have high stakes the medical community, the military and government, armed forces, use this training quite a bit cause of the reality you are able to induce and to do this in human services is long overdue”
This training also has a huge impact on our community.
"Essentially, these students and workers we are training are going into these communities, they are going to be working every day with children and families in this area and beyond. Our idea is that we serve all of Florida. We want them to be as prepared as possible to serve these families,” Finch said.
The Florida Institute for Child Welfare at FSU told me they have plans to keep expanding on this, even hiring real actors to come into their simulation rooms for training.
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