Learn Immersive raises money to build out language learning concept
[Philip Lelyveld comment: Great idea, but curious implementation. I'd suggest piggybacking on Periscope / Meerkat and creating live language sessions with strangers.]
To Tony Diepenbrock, the best way to learn a new language is to travel to a country where that language is spoken and try to make life work there. Just drop into the middle of France or Spain and learn how to buy groceries or park your car by reading signs, asking questions and responding to native speakers. However, Diepenbrock and Learn Immersive co-founder Charles Moyes raised a $400,000 angel round to build out their immersive language learning platform that can extend from the browser to room-scale VR. They hope a 3D environment and the feeling of presence people experience in VR will provide the same kind of exploratory learning experience as actually being there along with the sink-or-swim motivation to absorb information, all without spending the time and money to relocate.
The pair started Learn Immersive and they’ve built out a basic concept in Unity that allows teachers to use a drag-and-drop interface in an Internet browser to build out a virtual scenario for students learning a language with questions, answers and audio cues. They call it “Blueprint” and hope that by starting in the browser it will give people without access to head-mounted displays a way to use the platform to build out scenarios that can teach English, French or Spanish. However, they are banking on the idea that a more powerful learning experience is possible with high-quality, low-cost VR like the Rift and Vive giving people the sensation of reaching out and grabbing objects.
See the full story here: http://uploadvr.com/learn-immersive-language/?mc_cid=78762c11fd&mc_eid=cd6a4d9ecf