Te Damos Voz (we give you a voice) is an initiative from Bioguia, Efecto Colibrí, ES2 Latam, LeFil Consulting y PES Latam, that supports social enterprises in Latin America and the Caribbean and lets the whole region know their impact story.
We are going to meet PIXDEA, a company that uses virtual reality (VR) to improve children’s learning experiences and contributes to the transformation of the education system in Latin America. In the original podcast, we interviewed Xavier Rubio, founder of PIXDEA, and other participants in the project to get a broader idea about the company.
Host: What would happen if we used technology to transform the classroom into a place full of fun experiences that made children love to go to school? This was what brought Xavier Rubio to create PIXDEA, a company that develops VR programs with interactive educational content where the students can immerse themselves in another world and explore knowledge from another point of view.
Victoria, Student: Basically I could see the planets, choose which planet to look at, and when I grabbed them I could throw them, grab them again and it was really fun, I said: “there’s a planet” and I said “no, it’s me and Esteban, who are planets.
In Latin America, 4 out of every 10 students quit school, according to the data from the IDB. Some of them leave because they find themselves forced to work and others of their own volition because they don’t see it as attractive.
Host: Xavier confesses to us that he’s hated going to school since he was a boy so that other students don’t have the same experience, he undertook the challenge of transporting them to fascinating places. For those who have never experienced anything of the sort, he asks us to imagine it as a class in virtual reality.
Xavier: We asked ourselves if we can turn schools back into a place where kids do want to go, where they wake up on Monday and say: “I want to go today because I have science class and I’m going to outer space”. So that’s where it changes, the stigma that schools are boring is broken and they are converted into cool places.
We arrive at the classroom with headsets. Depending on the number of students and space, they can all have one at the same time. Normally a class lasts 20 minutes. We recommend having two meters squared per student so that they can have space to step around and manipulate objects. So, we look for a specific room, normally a sports hall or a big IT lab to do the experience. If there aren’t any rooms large enough, they do it in their classrooms. Then the child simply gets hooked up to the headset from the desktop and they’re there, in the virtual world.
Kids learn fast but if it’s their first time you’ll have to give them a short 10-minute session of what not to do: they can’t run with the headset on for example. Anyway, when you move or walk, you are moving through a virtual world. But a specific area is mapped out where if the child steps out of the area the visor cam activates and stops reproducing the content.
Host: When we asked him what topics they learned and what they could learn, he told us what we expected: the possibilities are endless.
Xavier: We are constructing lots of themes, above all the way we produce them is like a tree. We start from the basics of each one, from the branches of each of the sciences. We continue making the smaller branches. To give you an example in biology and science a strong branch is the cell as a basic unit. Then we have a module that only talks about cells.
The kids are really inside a cell. They see all the organelles. Then they learn how mitochondria work and how it relates to each of the organs. With this method, it’s much easier to memorise what each organ does.
If they tell you at the cell level for example, that the mitochondria are the motors of the human body, about where energy is produced, it’s easier to associate it if you have to grab a ton of mitochondria that work like batteries, right? To move a Russian mountain in which the child travels to the next point.
We have other environments. Now we are finishing up the Covid 19 one, which I believe is a masterpiece right now. We explain in detail what a virus is, what kinds of virus there are, and when I say details, it isn’t that we explain them, but the different viruses appear, the children can even manipulate them.
We show them how Covid compares in size compared to others cells, such as a red blood cell or a white blood cell, which are a thousand times bigger than Covid. Then, compared with rabies or with human hair. Then the child captures how small it is.
So, that example is one of the environments, but you can recreate anything. We are creating volcanoes and the history of volcanoes in Costa Rica, which is one of the markets we were in. It’s so cool to learn about volcanoes in your country while you are flying a helicopter is so fun!
Host: Something interesting about PIXDEA is that they create pedagogical content with a strong Latin American imprint. Instead of copying and pasting imported models, they design their own content, placing value on the region’s cultural richness.
Xavier: The content is Latino, it’s for the Latino culture. In Latin America, we normally consume European or American content and it’s as if to me I don’t care if you speak English or not. So, we are making it in Spanish as the main language and we are going to make an English version to export later. For whatever reason, the main language is going to be Spanish. As well as that, this culture is integral to the culture. I’ll give you an example, the spaceship from Honduras in our solar system, for our journey through the solar system. The spaceship is called Lempira. Lempira was an Indian warrior, a chief that was killed by the Spanish. He is a paternal figure and is called Lempira. That in Honduras.
In Costa Rica, it has another name of another national hero, and the ship is covered in flags. When they call you from the control station, they call you from the San José airport base. If we go to Argentina, it would be the Buenos Aires airport, and it’s going to have all the ambience of the country’s culture. So that makes it very different.
Host: Learning the history of our countries told from a local point of view, walking in front of the buildings where the big decisions were made in the past, sounds incredible.
Without a doubt virtual reality can take us to exciting worlds, but what happens with the interaction between the students when they are wearing the headset? What is the teacher’s role in a virtual reality classroom? Xavier explains that the kids can continue chatting in the virtual world and that the technology doesn’t replace the student’s conversations but complements and strengthens the facilitators’ role.
Xavier: Here the kids aren’t just passive, just looking at the board, listening to what the teacher says, or watching a video which is always necessary. But what comes with this technology is reinforcing what the teacher says.
Firstly, the teacher gives the grand scope of what the topic is about, then the kids become astronauts and go from planet to planet. We are there to reinforce what the teacher says.
What we are doing now is what we are really excited about for next year, we are waiting for it to be consolidated a little more. The one about the pandemic, we are going to create classrooms where they are all together virtually. For example, I’m saying if you had a headset, now, you enter my session, I would be able to see you as an avatar, you can even design how you want to look. As the headsets have an integrated microphone, we could talk normally and work on a project, from your city to where I am.
Host: Now, PIXDEA’s founder shares how the dynamics are thought out in agreement with the different learning objectives. He also tells us something important along the lines of diversity: the data analysis collected from the students using the headsets could be used to adapt the educational content to each child’s particular needs because of course, not everyone learns the same way and the classroom is a naturally diverse context.
Xavier: Every kind of dynamic is parameterized under certain factors that can motivate you to carry them out. We use a gamification Octalysis model. Take the solar system module for example, after we start comparing the planet’s size, we have to put them in order of size, which is very easy, and then later their order in terms of where they are positioned in the solar system. So, if they get it wrong, we count the number of mistakes they make and the times they get it right. That’s data.
We are hoping for a time when we are in many more countries, with thousands of users, that it can be done automatically and that the project adapts to the abilities of the child. One example would be if a kid perhaps isn’t very good at something specific, it would start to validate how many times they fail and the time it takes for them to fail.
When that child starts to fail, it will compare the score with the average from the server. If it’s lower, the program makes it easier so that the child doesn’t get frustrated and stagnate.
That’s the future we want, everything full of data so it can adjust itself automatically.
Host: Today we know that we learn through experience: We remember only 10% of what we read, but 90% of what we experience. Thinking about this, Pixdea has studied the evolution of education methods and proposes revamping them and capturing the illusive: attention of the students.
Xavier: I believe that education is the sector that have evolved the least in the last 100 years. In our presentations, we always put a school from 100 years ago and one of today, and they are almost exactly the same. They are the ones that have iPads. Is the overriding difference, which is a big help, a super tool. But they still keep you passive, consuming passive content.
If a teacher is giving a class and the kid has an iPad taking notes, they could also be doing anything else. But, when you have a headset on, that’s all you see, so concentration is augmented to 100%.
Also, it is demonstrated is that this technology is like they are in a game, like it’s a video game, it lowers the student’s stress levels.
Nathaly, Teacher: The truth is that the virtual reality that PIXDEA shows us for education is undoubtedly a super opportunity for students to learn in a faster, more dynamic way, especially because children are immersed in this world where there are no distractions as they will find in a classroom, it does not even give them time to think about other things other than what they are learning at that moment. They are the protagonists of the story, from seeing the most historical monument in the world to travelling through space and feeling like they are there while they carry out each dynamic and aside from all that, enjoy themselves while they learn.
Host: We asked him how kids and adults receive this innovative tool and how they measure if the children are actually learning.
Xavier: On the qualitative side we have seen that 99.9% of students want to use it again. Them accepting it is a good indicator because the kids want to use it, and not just the kids but the teachers too. According to the data, learning is improved after two weeks by 90%, according to the study by Edward Dale, who is a famous educator and is one of the most notable in terms of schooling. Then we, apart from what the cone of learning says and those studies we have, we try to make comparisons with our data and how we make it: once we have sessions with the kids, two weeks later we make a small survey on Google, where we put what they learned if they remember.
The number of correct answers is higher than 80% with a 15 or 20-minute virtual reality session.
Host: If we are talking about technology and education, we need to talk about access too: In Latin American countries there are very different realities between public and private schools. Xavier tells us how they created a virtuous business model so that students in public schools don’t get shut out.
Xavier: Private schools are our main customers, they can buy. Here’s an interesting topic. When we started with our start-up, we obviously couldn’t sell it to the government without validation that it worked with students. The suitable path was to start looking at a private school and start making tracks, because private school kids, their parents, can buy the headsets, but public-school kids can’t. So, there was a moment in the last year we made a decision and we thought that this could be counterproductive because this was giving more opportunities to the kids that had the cash to buy headsets. So, we created a program so that this wouldn’t happen.
In Honduras, PIXDEA is a free licence for public schools. Private businesses buy the headsets and deliver them personally with volunteers to public schools. So, it is free for public school students.
Host: In recent years we have seen that the most transformative impact initiatives are those that find themselves guided by a clear purpose. Social innovation is created and sustained on the will of the changemakers. Xavier tells us what his dreams are and how they are a permanent fixture in his day-to-day life as a social entrepreneur in order to get closer and closer to the future he wants to build.
My biggest dream is for the current democracy to base itself more on science and technology.
Xavier: I believe that all problems are educational problems, from the politician that gets to where he is because of a lack of values, or those that get there through a lack of knowledge to do their job properly, it’s all an issue of education. So, what better change for Latin America than to start from the foundations?
Inspire, so that when the children put on their headset, they become astronauts, scientists. So, I believe that that is the most positive thing we are doing: telling a kid from Honduras, which is one of the poorest countries in Latin America: look, if some way, they prepare, study, work very hard, they can go far, even to the stars. Somehow, they can do it because they were astronauts and flew a spaceship. So, I believe that if the brain sees it as more tangible because it’s already seen it, even though it might be a simulation, it’s already felt it and it’s easier to find the right path. On that side of things, I believe that we are inspiring the new citizens of Latin America to really become the agents of change that we need.
Zohar, PIXDEA employee: Working in PIXDEA has been a very gratifying experience for me because I love to be able to put my creative abilities at the service of a company whose vision is to generate a positive impact on education. We give the opportunity to kids to dream big, to get excited to discover what’s left for them to learn. Personally, I would have loved to learn like this at school.
Host: Surely, most of us are thinking the same thing. The good news is that little by little, this is all becoming a reality for kids in Latin America.
