{"id":52838,"date":"2019-01-08T16:43:22","date_gmt":"2019-01-08T21:43:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsroom.carleton.ca\/?post_type=cu_story&p=52838"},"modified":"2025-10-01T15:42:54","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T19:42:54","slug":"vr-platform-viola-desmond","status":"publish","type":"cu_story","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/story\/vr-platform-viola-desmond\/","title":{"rendered":"VR Gives Life to Canadian Legend"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n VR Gives Life to Canadian Legend\n <\/h1>\n \n <\/header>\n <\/div>\n\n \n <\/path>\n <\/path>\n <\/svg>\n <\/div>\n\n \n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n

Walking into a peaceful room, you take a seat next to a pile of magazines. Women\u2019s voices, talking and laughing, come from nearby and a breeze ruffles the curtains as a streetcar rumbles past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s 1946 in Halifax, and you\u2019re in the beauty salon of Viola Desmond<\/a>, who will soon defy a segregation policy at the Roseland movie theatre and eventually become a civil rights icon and the first Canadian woman to be pictured on our currency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Welcome to the Circles platform, an innovative educational virtual reality (VR) experience created by Anthony Scavarelli, doctoral student at Carleton\u2019s School of Information Technology<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Anthony Scavarelli<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

While it\u2019s a truism and challenge of our age that the technology that connects also isolates, Scavarelli has other ideas about that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFor me, the most important part of technology is the human element,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019ve always used computers as a tool for creating experiences that bring people together.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His approach is unusual – it\u2019s artistic and egalitarian, and driven by a belief that technology can help us connect with each other and with the world around us in lively, creative ways.<\/p>\n\n\n

\"VR<\/figure>\n\n\n

Amplifying Learning Effects Through VR<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

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VR in education is his current venue for putting those ideas into action and, for Scavarelli, it begins with VR\u2019s experiential value. \u201cUsing our bodies to interact with things or being immersed in a world is known to amplify learning effects.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Literature reviews of VR use in education, however, reveal a common theme. Usually one person at a time wouldc use the headset and then remove it and talk about their experience.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cGiven how much we learn from shared experience, that seemed strange. So I wanted to combine social cognition with the experiential learning VR offers by creating virtual worlds that participants can visit together and experience from multiple different perspectives.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

He also noticed that VR wasn\u2019t always accessible. VR normally requires headsets. They can cost hundreds of dollars, generally have wires people might trip over, and cause nausea in a significant number of participants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis means that an educational experience that should be available to everyone is already restricted to some and not others.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scavarelli decided to use a programming interface that brings VR content to web browsers to create a platform that can be accessed using mobile devices and desktop PCs via keyboard controls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe desktop or mobile device experience may be less immersive, but it allows you to participate,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Exploring the Worlds of Viola Desmond<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

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The result is a revolutionary prototype platform where users can experience a VR world simultaneously with others on a variety of devices. Circles currently offers a central hub, or \u201ccampfire,\u201d with three worlds relating to Desmond, who was a cosmetics pioneer for black women in Atlantic Canada: her beauty salon, the Roseland movie theatre and Province House<\/a>, the site of her posthumous mercy free pardon in 2010.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe locations don\u2019t have people in them,\u201d says Scavarelli, \u201cbut with VR immersion you can move around, hear sounds and pick up objects. It\u2019s like a living world that we\u2019re visiting in shadow, so to speak.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The central \u201ccampfire\u201d hub.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The prototype platform was developed by a multidisciplinary team of six, headed by Scavarelli. It included a sound engineer, 3-D animator and a storyteller. Viola Desmond\u2019s story was chosen for its topicality and to support diversity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The project got a serious boost in 2018 when Scavarelli became one of just 100 selected from thousands across North America to participate in the 2018 Oculus Launch Pad program. Oculus, a VR industry leader that produced a headset that raised US$2.5 million on Kickstarter, flew participants to Menlo Park, California for a boot camp weekend of workshops and lectures, followed by three months of feedback and support from industry professionals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was immensely helpful for moving the project along,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Accessibility, Social Scalability and Appeal<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

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Informal pilot studies of Circles have been encouraging, and formal user studies in early 2019 are looking at accessibility, social scalability\u2014how many people can beneficially participate\u2014and appeal to students and educators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Scavarelli first came to Carleton as an undergraduate, he was enrolled in the physics program, determined to be a theoretical physicist. That focus soon changed.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cInstead of doing my assignments, I was on the computer teaching myself Photoshop and how to create in 3-D. It was the first computer that was my own\u2014at home I shared one with my family\u2014and I was amazed by its power.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

He switched over to the Interactive Multimedia and Design<\/a> (IMD) program, a joint initiative between Carleton\u2019s School of Information Technology and Algonquin College\u2019s School of Media and Design. The program gives its students \u201ca general knowledge base in everything technology,\u201d says Scavarelli, who currently teaches a third-year IMD course at Algonquin.  With both theoretical knowledge and hands-on application, graduates have an understanding of the industry that helps them adapt as it shifts and changes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then came a master\u2019s degree in Human\u2013Computer Interaction<\/a>, where Scavarelli did a deep dive. Outside of class, he and a fellow IMD graduate formed Luminartists. Tired of seeing people locked into their phones out in public, they used technology to create a series of interactive art installations for special events around Ottawa that encouraged people to connect with each other and with the space around them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"VR<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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This ethos of connection through technology animates the Circles prototype as well, and Scavarelli wants to see whether there\u2019s a place for the platform beyond its current research phase. He\u2019s reaching out to museums and other institutions for possible collaboration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same time, he\u2019s putting out feelers for funding partnerships, whether with industry, academia or other institutions\u2014anyone who might be interested in taking the idea of web-based VR for education further.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cThere may be a return on investment later on,\u201d he says, \u201cbut the opportunity now is to be ahead of the curve on defining and creating what VR education can look like.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Industry predictions are that VR is poised to go mainstream in the next couple of years. Already the headsets – some with touch sensors, some wireless – are available for a few hundred dollars, down from the thousands they used to cost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In other words, according to Scavarelli, now is the time to start discussing ethical issues related to VR. Concerns range from the possible psychological effects of being immersed in a VR world with problematic content to personal data collection that could, down the road, lead to virtual cloning of participants without their permission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the dangers, though, for Scavarelli the potential benefits of VR are compelling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUltimately art and technology are for everyone, to inform and inspire us and to better our sense of connection, and VR, by bringing people together into a virtual space, is really the ultimate form of doing that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Click here<\/a><\/strong> for more stories from the Carleton Newsroom.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Walking into a peaceful room, you take a seat next to a pile of magazines. Women\u2019s voices, talking and laughing, come from nearby and a breeze ruffles the curtains as a streetcar rumbles past. It\u2019s 1946 in Halifax, and you\u2019re in the beauty salon of Viola Desmond, who will soon defy a segregation policy at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":410,"featured_media":52848,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"cu_story_type":[13,25,19],"cu_story_tag":[1918,1923,1925],"class_list":["post-52838","cu_story","type-cu_story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","cu_story_type-research-discovery","cu_story_type-student-experience","cu_story_type-technology-innovation","cu_story_tag-faculty-of-engineering-and-design","cu_story_tag-graduate-studies","cu_story_tag-research"],"acf":{"cu_post_thumbnail":"blueprint"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/52838","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/cu_story"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/410"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/52838\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97424,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/52838\/revisions\/97424"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"cu_story_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story_type?post=52838"},{"taxonomy":"cu_story_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story_tag?post=52838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}