
Game-based virtual archaeology field school - diodorus
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/01/200129123353.htm
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randomstring
Back in the 1990s UIUC had a virtual Archaeology lab running on PLATO.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PLATO_(computer_system)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PLATO_\(computer_system\))

You had to pick where to dig test pits and how deep to dig in order to find
artifacts. If you found nothing, you had to decide to either dig deeper or
open a new test pit. A great lesson in how to do sampling.

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wlesieutre
Pretty cool! I'd love to see something like this in National Geographic's
Explore VR.

Their first one was more of an adventure with kayaking and ice climbing on an
expedition, the second was guided sightseeing with informational voiceover
conversation while you take the requested pictures for a magazine article.

Getting hands on and seeing what archeologists actually do on a site would be
a great educational experience, but maybe not one that the average person
would have the patience for?

[https://www.oculus.com/experiences/quest/2046607608728563](https://www.oculus.com/experiences/quest/2046607608728563)

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aaron695
It's like a giant shared illusion.

We know we don't learn from computer games. (Some very very few exceptions)

We know VR is just not good enough.

As developers or people who plan and pay for projects we know the money to
develop this properly is prohibitively expensive and has not been spent. I'd
guess $1 million to do it in a manner that works? More?

This is not like the dream of going to Mars where the shared delusion allows
us to get GPS and Satellite internet and weather predictions and amazing
things along the way.

This is just a roundabout cycle, someone pretends to make a game were people
learn, it gets junked because it doesn't work, and repeat. We add words like
VR, AR, AI to hide the cycle a little but it's not half obvious.

This isn't evolution or prototyping or MVP or experimenting, it's a known
circle.

~~~
toxicFork
This attitude is what prevents growth.

I disagree, it IS evolution and MVPs and experimenting.

Vr tech IS improving and getting cheaper and better and more attractive.

We ARE finding ways to learn better with interactive content.

Whatever does not work does give lessons for the future on what not to do.

In the first few stages of evolution of any kind, the creations appear
completely random and useless and inefficient. This allows one of the
creations that happens to be a good fit for the environment to succeed. After
that, the rest of the creation can be in forms of slight mutations rather than
complete throw aways. Additionally, if you (or the creator) keep in mind to
evaluate the failure cases, the evolution will be even faster.

