octopus.degree

Link to this presentation in .pdf format:
http://to2hov.com/octopus-degree-hackaton.pdf

1. Intro

In recent years, digitalisation has taken a serious place in our daily lives. And now, in a time of crisis, new technologies have found application in many everyday activities, especially in education. Distance learning is now a necessity, and technical literacy for handling new devices and digital platforms is a must. From where we came to this conclusion - an example was the dozens of people down the line - teachers, students and parents who endured little stress and even culture shock, adapting to change and the urgent need to learn how to use technology not just for fun, but and for the work and education of their children.

For example, for a teacher to be good at his job and to teach his lesson in a way that stays in the minds of students for a long time, it is necessary to monitor the development of innovation around the world, and strive to implement different solutions in your work. Something that students can respond to and get inspired by.

We, when confronted personally with the problems of our children's education and being responsible for the changing environment, want to provide them with an easy and fun way to educate them. This provides teachers with a solution to a functional and innovative platform through which they can teach more easily, impactfully, and memorise their lessons. For this purpose we propose to develop the platform: Octopus Degree. This is a training platform based on modern and immersive technology - VR. It is intended for students from 1st to 8th grade, including their teachers, and does not exclude the possibility of developing it for the older ones.

Why octopus?

According to www.zooportraits.com, by far the world's smartest invertebrates, octopuses can carry out complex tasks, such as opening a jar to get to its contents. Not only do they have a good short and long term memory but also a remarkable ability to learn new skills from the moment they are born. After the gradual promotion and validation of the quality of the platform, it will become a benchmark for a high level of quality education. We envision the platform to provide students with a degree of excellence. This recognition will be of great importance, showing that the student has successfully met high standards of education and has a solid background in material from 1st to 8th grade.

What do we mean by degree?

We intend for the platform to gain a lot of popularity in the world and to introduce a new way of educating the younger generation. After the gradual promotion and validation of the quality of the platform, it will become a benchmark for a high level of quality education. We envision the platform to provide students with a degree of excellence. This recognition will be of great importance, showing that the student has successfully met high standards of education and has a solid background in material from 1st to 8th grade.

What is VR?

Virtual Reality (VR) is a brand new user interface and unlike the conventional one where the user views the display, VR is immersed in real or digital 3D environments. Computer- generated images and content are intended to simulate real presence through senses (vision, hearing, touch). VR as a technology is misleading the human brain to perceive digital content as real. There are several options for viewing VR, one of the most affordable options being a smartphone and a VR headset.

The most important VR accessory for this technology is the headset. Products range from high-quality motion-controlled VR headsets that capture and transmit your full head and eye movements, to simpler VR headsets that simply display simulated environments or 360- degree shooting.

Why VR?

The main purpose of virtual reality in education is to make the learning process exciting and more effective. VR simulations provide a deep understanding of the material from the learner with its further application in real life. Virtual reality creates a sense of experience that is difficult to achieve through other methods.

The strongest evidence that virtual reality can be a technique used in the education system is the following data relating to the functioning of the human brain: it tends to remember 10% of what you read, 20% of what you hear, and 90% of what you do or simulate.

2. The problems our project solves

Here's how our Octopus Degree platform helps in the following areas:

Octopus Degree solves problems in:

E-Learning methods & tools
Under this challenge, we aim at addressing issues related to:

Monitoring of students' learning process.
By creating this platform, we will be able to easily and quickly track what the children are doing and which part of their education has attracted their attention and to which they have not paid attention at all. All this thanks to the tracking system of virtual reality, which follows the eyes of the learner.

Examinations
We suggest that you take the exams after each lesson. This helps parents monitor the progress of their children on a topic. As soon as a test is completed, parents will be able to receive an email with the result. Students will also be able to take tests after each major topic. This will form the final evaluation.

Online interactions/group learning
The advantage of virtual reality is that even if the children are not in one place (school), we can create a school environment for them to meet other children. Everyone can have an avatar to talk to each other or even play in the yard in the form of extracurricular fun (archery, throwing a basket, and other easy and fun activities).

Data and privacy issues
Students' data will not be used by third parties. In this way, we will protect our children from any possible privacy issues.

Limited access to educational material
In this section, we will have to limit some of the lessons so that children cannot watch what is to come in future lessons, but this will be an easily accessible option from the teacher's panel. Also, the number of students will be controlled by the teacher through his personal platform.

In addition, Octopus Degree also solves problems in the following categories:

Efficient remote working
Under this challenge, we aim at addressing issues related to:

Mental and physical health for teleworkers
With this technology, we provide an alternative way for children to cope with their lessons so that we can give parents peace of mind while working as their children learn. By providing more accessible and comprehensible content for children in their lessons, parents will be able to spend more time in common activities with children, including hobbies, sports, games.

Creating a healthy work environment at home
By creating a healthy balance between training, professional engagement, and fun time, we will also help create a more relaxed family environment.

Family life during remote working & education
Under this challenge, we aim at addressing issues related to:

Making a healthy comfortable work environment at home
Providing a reliable and easy-to-use educational channel will eliminate the stress of misunderstanding school material. This, in turn, will lead to a smoother self-absorption by the students with minimal assistance from the parents. As a result, parents will have the opportunity to work in a relaxed environment within their home while their children are studying.

Lack of meaningful social contacts with peers
In addition to creating a place for children to “play” with their classmates, we can also create a virtual parenting site to discuss with their parents virtually how their children are doing and to check that the system is really contributing to the development of their child.

Toddlers minding
At this stage of technology development, it is not targeted at this age group, so we do not have a solution for it.

Preschool children minding
At this stage of technology development, it is not targeted at this age group, so we do not have a solution for it.

Primary and secondary school-specific challenges
Under this challenge, we aim at addressing issues related to:

Lack of access to technology and IT literature.
Many people think that virtual reality is a very expensive technology, but this is not the case because the platform we are considering to build will be entirely web-based. With the help of a smartphone in combination with a headset, we could enable any child to access our system.

In fact, the smartphone does not need to be expensive, it must have access to an internet connection and a gyroscope on it, with many low-end models meeting these requirements nowadays on the market.

VR headset also has alternatives available. Over the last three years, we have been developing such a device to minimise the single price for such an accessory, which has full functionality and at the same time is affordable at any cost.

Assisting parents and taking over teachers' roles
Virtual reality makes the classic learning process a truly immersive experience. With his help, the classroom is not limited to four walls, and parents won't even have to interfere with the learning process.

Disproportionate learning outcomes after the lockdown
Using a platform in which all materials will be the same for each age category, such a mismatch will be avoided and the quality of education will be improved. Implementation of final examinations at the national level

Exams are held after each lesson. Students will also be able to take tests after each major topic. This will form the final evaluation. The estimates are collected in a single database. In this way, they are easily accessible and will not be able to be manipulated. After each test, parents receive an email with the result and will be able to follow the overall process of knowledge accumulation and assessment.

Ensuring access to warm meals for children from disadvantaged families
Our project has a different focus, so we have no solution at this point.

Organizing online excursions
One of the great benefits of virtual reality is that we could create virtual excursions to a zoo or a very interesting museum. In this way, we could support what has been learned on a specific topic in school, such as biology. The best part is that virtual reality provides an opportunity for children from Bulgaria to walk in the Louvre or for children from Berlin to visit the Zoo in Barcelona.

University-specific challenges
Under this challenge, we aim at addressing issues related to:

Open Sciences / Open Access / Open Equipment
Of course, technology also helps the older ones by giving them access to materials and supplies in a much safer environment for them.

Hands-on / experiential learning
In a virtual environment, a demonstration can be made to stimulate experiential learning. Subjects like biology and chemistry can be more easily absorbed through virtual experiments.

Transdisciplinary COVID research coordination
Here again comes our avatars communication system, thanks to which we can safely build fast and easy communication in remote locations.

Students' challenges
Under this challenge, we aim at addressing issues related to:

Repayment of study loans
This could be done by outsourcing companies to build a virtual environment for their business model, in which students can more easily immerse themselves and understand whether they like this environment and this employer and would like to work for him. Then send a request and a set of application documents to the employer, if he provides distance learning and work. Thus, students will also be able to repay their student loans quickly.

Recuperation of student work
This is where our avatars communication system comes in, thanks to which we can safely build fast and easy communication between remote locations. Developing autonomous learning/support groups

This is where our avatars communication system comes in, thanks to which we can safely build fast and easy communication between remote locations. Thus, people from all over the world will be able to form mutual aid groups.

3. The solution you bring to the table

At the outset, the interactive training platform we offer will be in the form of a "toolkit". It will support standard teaching methods, with modules for teachers, students, and parents. In this way, we will be able to track and control completely what students see, what parents (grades), and teachers have access to (what lessons to show).

The platform is highly functional and multi-component, which makes it laborious to build. But we believe that by creating and promoting it, we would contribute to the sustainable development of education as a whole, facilitating important aspects of education and the opportunity for free communication between students (parents and teachers) from different parts of the world to share experiences, ideas and to be mutually beneficial.

4. The solution's impact to the crisis

This type of platform would help with a lot of things during the crisis, but at the moment the project is at an ideal stage and cannot give concrete results now. In the future, in the case of launching this platform, it can have a positive impact on education and communication both locally and globally. At its core, it mainly facilitates the learning process for students and helps a great deal in the work of teachers, but in reality children who have undergone such a reliable and quality education will be much more qualified for their further education and professional development. Thanks to the solid foundation that will be laid through the Octopus degree, children will better develop their technological skills, logical thinking, and imagination.

5. The necessities in order to continue the project

The need for such a platform is visible. It would solve much more than one problem, and in many areas beyond Remote Working and Education, which we briefly explained in point 2. Education has always been a priority area and a key element in a nation's progress. In order not to hurt this area further as a result of the crisis, it is necessary to make a timely decision tailored to the interests of today's generation. And to take into account some of the key benefits of learning through VR technology:

VR is a sophisticated way to visualise each element. Virtual reality is a universal tool for displaying objects, processes, locations, and historical events.
VR increases subsequent engagement with real-world experiences.
VR technology also offers great potential for expanding knowledge and understanding of the world.
VR is a proven method for teaching any school or university course or program.
Integrating VR into the curriculum is one way to improve the learning process for the next generation.
This technology removes all language barriers because it facilitates communication processes through visualisation.
VR introduces aspects of gamification in the learning process, providing incentive assessment systems.

6. The value of your solution (s) after the crisis

We are a startup format that is just working to shape the idea of an Octopus degree. Recent surveys of teachers show the following:

97% of students would like to take VR courses, only 23% of schools have tested VR, and about 10% plan to use it in the next year or two.
68% want to use VR to better absorb learning material from students;
72% would like to use VR simulation to reproduce the real-life situation related to the content of the training;
69% are ready for virtual travel to distant destinations (the Great Wall of China or Stonehenge) or inaccessible places, such as other planets and outer space;
42% of grade 9-12 teachers believe that using VR for presentation and virtual tours of universities can help teens make their future choices related to further education. While most teachers believe that VR will benefit most from science (82%), social studies (81%) and history (81%), statistics show the following trends:

Science-related subjects - 52%
History - 29%
Engineering majors - 20%
Arts - 15%
Mathematics - 12%
Design - 10%
Literature - 9%
Other - 23%

Detailed statistics show that such a virtual platform is an expected solution for both students and teachers. With VR technology, learning, fun, and communication become more comfortable, emotional, and engaging. And smartphones are turning the door to knowledge in an impactful way, rather than another digital activity that distracts the child from the lesson.

The Octopus degree platform will launch sustainable and positive educational trends that will increase the success and growth of the next generation in all aspects such as personal development, family planning, career guidance.

7. The URL to the prototype

Everything painted so far is only a conceptual plan and there is no opportunity for such a short period to build such a platform. But we hope to give you a chance to realise our ideas and turn the Octopus degree into a real education system for a better future globally.

In case you cannot find out presentation please visit the following link:
http://to2hov.com/octopus-degree-hackaton.pdf