Immerse Your Brain:

I have a son, Max, and he thinks studying is the most boring thing ever invented. So if we manage to force him to go to his room he is interested in everything but his books. He is checking his phone, plays with his protractor triangle, is looking out of the window, makes silly drawings and does all other things you can do in a room after you had to hand in your keyboard to avoid using your computer.

Max should have a learning method which is fun, keeps him focused and helps him to memorize his homework better.

In my search for this, it seemed like a good idea to start with the real professionals. What were the winners of the world memory championships using ? They appeared to apply a technique called method of loci (or memory palace). In this method the user visualizes a path through a familiar environment in which they place images or objects related to the items to remember. It is a very powerful method to remember things but takes effort to practice.

There has been done a lot of research on the effectiveness of this method. Some results:

The Loci Method efficacy on word-list is often demonstrated^a
Images placed in the loci should be vivid, personal, very distinctive, well-illuminated and right sized compared to the loci^b
The Loci Method is more effective if the material is presented orally^b
The Loci method is most effective when the loci are visible during learning and recall or in both phases the loci were not visible. But also when the loci was visible during the learning phase only, the method was more effective than ordinary learning^c

^a Bellezza,1996; Higbee, 1988 ^b De Beni, 2004 ^c Kemp, 1985

How could I convince Max to use this method and become the Dominic O'Brien (eight-time memory world champion ) of his class ?

The answer is easy:

Virtual Reality!!

Using a web-interface, Max can enter a list of items and it's definitions to learn, select a picture he associates with each item, by this creating an item-list in a database.

When starting the Samsung gear application, Max logs in with his account-name and password, selects the item-list he wants to learn and starts the 3D environment. There the 360° movie starts which takes him along the predefined route and on specific places the selected pictures with the items he has to learn for school are shown, the definition is also orally presented to Max.

Different learning modes will be integrated, with a quiz mode including scoring and input by speech to text to check if he really knows his stuff and to give him a game experience.

Because he is wearing the VR set, there is no room for distraction, he will utilize the positive effects of the Method of Loci, without the big effort to start with it and have a fun way to become an A+ student!!

APK Update:

Since this app get's its pictures dynamically from the web, using google translate to make the vocals while you are playing and uses Android Speech to analyse your speech input it is important to have a good internet connection.

The demo uses a predefined list but this list only consists out of data generated with the website (so in this case for example : earth, la terre, http://pixabay.com/static/uploads/photo/2015/02/12/17/28/aurora-633994_150.jpg) the rest is done dynamically.

Controls:

Use the touchpad to start (as indicated on the screen). Use speech to give the answers.

Enjoy the balloon trip but pay attention and try to get the perfect 10!

Watch the fully working demo video below:

(This weekend I had (limited) time to test on the Gear. It was running a different version of the voice recognizer than the Samsung S4 I have been testing on (which was working perfect with basic Google recognition, see my video below). The new version is not using the preferedLanguage setting anymore.

For the best result in the current APK please set : English as the default and French as the additional language in the voice recognizer of the note!

Innovation:

Using all the new possibilities like VR, text to speech, speech to text and 360° video to get a very old and proven memorizing method alive again. A flexible effective method which can be used for everything you have to learn at school valid for reading, auditory, visual and tactile learners