Bringing studies to life through virtual reality
Event Overview:
- Prize Category: Innovation
- Format: Panel discussion
- Country: Japan
- Languages: Streamed live in English with automated captions in Arabic, English, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Japanese, Filipino, Malay, Serbian and Hindi.
- Learn more about the Top Ten Shortlisted Schools in the Innovation category on the World’s Best School Prizes website.
Watch on-demand
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About the school
N High School, a correspondence upper secondary school in Okinawa, Japan, immerses students in virtual worlds to bring their studies to life.
Established in 2016, N High School is the largest private school in Japan, with around 20,000 students and 33 satellite campuses in both urban and rural areas. Classes are taught in person and online and lessons not only focus on traditional subjects such as Mathematics and Literature but on AI and machine learning as well. Its students come from a range of backgrounds, encompassing children from higher income to lower income families.
N High School launched its VR programme in 2021 to allow students to enhance their studies from home by using virtual spaces. Students could turn to technology to visit historical sites in distant countries, or take part in otherwise hazardous scientific experiments safely from home. In their English language studies, Smart Tutor is used to conduct lessons with virtual avatars called “Holosapiens” that converse with pupils and evaluate their performance in fluency, speed and eye contact. Now, about half of the 7,143 classes available in the school are VR-enabled.
In February 2022, the school also launched an interview training programme designed to help students prepare for employment and university entrance exams. The school also partnered with Kinki University, Chuo University and Komazawa University to allow students to experience campus virtually at any time.
Join us for an interesting session on virtual reality.
Speakers
Moderator: Shinichi Yamanaka
Prior to his current job, he held a position as a Director General of Elementary and Secondary Education Bureau (2010-2012), Deputy Minister of Vice Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) (2012-2013), and as a Vice Minister of MEXT (2013-2015). During his job as Minister and Director General, he was responsible for promoting education reform for 21st century education. After retiring from the Ministry, he served as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Bulgaria (2016 – 2017) and Director of Dwango (2018 – ).
Speaker 1: Soichiro Yoshimura
Aside from being the principal of S High School, a second high school under Kadokawa Dwango Educational Institute, he also contributes to learning as an educational programmer and an instructor at N/S High School. Prior to his current job, he served as a the development lead of Niconico Live Broadcasting. His specialties are server-side and client-side concurrency implementation, RDB data modeling & operation, and application development using TypeScript/JavaScript/Java. He is passionate in making softwares that many people would enjoy.
Speaker 2: Jun Yunokawa
One of the English coordinators for Kadokawa Dwango Educational Institute (N High School). They started their career as an English instructor in an international school and continued onto the translation industry as a simultaneous on-site interpreter. After their translation/interpretation work, they joined Kadokawa Dwango Educational Institute. Currently, they are in charge of English curriculum support and teaching English to students with advanced English skills.