Post #9: Tilt Brush: A Virtual Reality Creation Tool

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As Augmented and Virtual Reality tools have hit the market, education may never be the same. Old, static pictures on a page can now become almost-living things, as students are able to peer inside the chambers of a human heart for science curriculum or take a tour of Paris from their French classrooms. The possibilities are endless for a richer, more nuanced, and more lifelike learning experience than ever before.

Entering the mix for art is Tilt Brush, a program by Google that works with virtual reality headsets (Vive, Oculus Rift and Quest, Windows Mixed Reality, and Valve Index) that allows students to create and view their art from all angles. The possibilities for understanding form, lines, and color in a lifelike virtual reality make an entire classroom a canvas for creation.

To use Tilt Brush, simply purchase the program ($20) and load into a virtual reality headset. From there, use the controls to access the palette and begin painting!

Tilt Brush’s website offers a fairly comprehensive overview of the technology, as well as inspiration for using it, including tutorials:




Since the headset is relatively expensive, making it cost-prohibitive for large-scale classroom use, it would be a great addition to a library’s digital makerspace, (where students would have time to play with the medium in a smaller setting) in order to create truly new and enchanting art forms that can be saved to a virtual library such as Poly. Tilt Brush allows students to upload their works into Poly’s website for others to enjoy, view, and use in their own work. The creations live on in sharable form where they may turn into backgrounds for video games, gifs, or simply places of inspiration for budding artists. According to Poly’s website, some of the content is published under a “CC-BY” license, and as long as the author is credited, it may be remixed into the work of others. Each creation is clickable, and it is easy to see whether the content can be reused or not.

In the 21st century learning model and the AASL standards, students are encouraged to become creators rather than simply consumers of their content. In addition, a high premium is placed on creativity, which is Tilt Brush’s main mode of operation. Such an engaging tool naturally inspires students to think outside the box while also learning about their art from a previously impossible mode. Students are able to virtually walk around their creations, creating a unique perspective, much as they would a model. This allows for rich discovery of form and function which can translate nicely into the “real” world.


Tilt Brush is also just plain fun, as can be seen from the next two videos, one which uses it as pure inspiration from one of Disney’s artists and the other as a clever game of Pictionary on Jimmy Fallon's show:






As virtual reality works to improve and ultimately enhance teaching and learning in the digital age, this tool is a great place to start with its engaging interface and ease of use.


References

AASL. Shared foundations: Engage. Retrieved from https://standards.aasl.org/engage/

Additional Resources:







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