Virtual Reality has arrived!
Whether it is in the gaming world, the theme park experience world or any other world out there. It’s here!
We can see how this game changing tech will be disrupting all sorts of sectors, but none more so than the education and training sector, which, to us, holds the potential to be the most impactful to humankind out of them all!
Why is training so important?
We are passionate about training, the transfer of skills from one to another, and see it as the ultimate network / viral effect. When it is decided by a Government, an international Council, an industry, or by the people, that a subject is so important that people should have a level of skill in that subject, training is the distribution of those skills on a macro scale. For example, in the last decade, it has become more widely supported that mental health awareness is fundamental to health in general and as more and more Organisations, Governments, Countries and people agreed with this concept, we saw the roll out of mental health related training programmes across the board, in all walks of life. We saw training in our Schools, in our hospitals, in our local communities and of course in our businesses.
The widely held belief that mental health skills were required by the masses culminated in a huge operation to distribute those skills to the masses, by hundreds, if not thousands of training providers around the world.
Why is Virtual Reality important?
Now, few innovations have disrupted the training distribution machine over the last 50 years. Training itself (especially in the safety sector) is relatively young and has not been as widely accepted as ‘important’ until fairly recently. All innovations over the last decade or so have been related to the distribution of training, e.g. E-Learning, Video Training, Webinars etc. and all are innovations that make it cheaper and easier to distribute to larger numbers of learners. Many training professionals that we know may argue that these innovations, while certainly decreasing costs and improving productivity, may compromise the effectiveness of the training. There have been NO innovations that improve the EFFECTIVENESS of training and that is why VR is so exciting!
Why Fire Safety Training?
So, why is fire safety training the title of this article? There are a couple of reasons we wanted to talk about fire safety training in particular. First of all, we are a dedicated safety training company and are immersed in the day to day delivery of fire safety courses. Our trainers are all Firefighters and are the driving force behind our mission to equip the masses with skills in the prevention of fires and the preservation of life. Secondly, we see fire safety training as the perfect environment for Virtual Reality to have maximum impact on learners.
Virtual reality allows learners to drop into high pressure, emergency situations and put the skills and knowledge they have learnt into practice, but in a totally safe environment. No more ‘theory only training’ no more ‘E-Learning’. VR Learning is here and will be revolutionising all training, starting with fire safety.
Interested in finding our more about VR Training?
VR is just beginning and we will be talking about this more and more over the coming months and years, discussing how it can be used in all sorts of training scenarios. If you have any thoughts or experiences of VR training, then leave a comment or send us an email. We would love to start a conversation and get your thoughts on how you think this technology may help shape the future.
If you would like further information about this or any of the topics we cover, please leave your comments below, or email us at info@certifiedskills.co.uk
