Transforming Education with Virtual Reality

2When Technology Meets Tradition: Rediscovering Tribes Through Virtual Reality

Debanjana Nag

Dr. Ambedkar Centre of Excellence, Central Tribal University of Andhra Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, India

Abstract

The 21^st century world has been converted into a global village with digitalized communication technologies and liberalized economic policies. Everything here is very transparent and easy to access virtually. Digitalization is an invisible but powerful wire of communication networks which connects high-class elite to poor remote communities. It opens up various areas in order to know the world better with limited resources and enables mankind to reach the not so well-known or underprivileged segments such as the tribes. There is a strong misconception of a majority of people that the tribes live a primitive and barbarous way of life. But they are often enriched by a traditional but highly scientific indigenous knowledge system as well as strong cultural heritage. The emerging concept of virtual reality (VR) can play a significant role in rediscovering and acknowledging the tribal system of knowledge. Through VR, with enhanced viewership like 3D pictures or 360° panoramic videos, the world can experience a whole new society of the tribes. It is an entirely new learning pedagogy where the conventional society can understand and educate themselves with the tribal knowledge, tribal lifestyle and cultural inheritance in a livelier and entertaining way. Hence, the aim of this chapter ...