This week, immersive education solution specialists CareerViewXR continued providing VR environments that bring students to demanding workplace settings, aiming to support students in deciding their career paths.
CareerViewXR’s mission is not to replace in-person field trips but to democratise access to spaces locked off to students, such as emergency rooms or HIPAA-regulated areas.
In a conversation with XR Today last year, Matt Chaussee, CEO and Co-Founder of CareerViewXR, explained, “this is a system that is not to replace the actual field trip, the actual job shadow; however, there are time, geography, financial safety, and privacy constraints that prevent us from getting students into all of the locations that we would physically want to put them; this allows them to explore safely and with 24/7 access.”
Most recently, CareerViewXR, in collaboration with the Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) Office of Special Education and Early Learning (OSEEL), is launching a series of new VR field trip opportunities for construction, marine transportation, and tourism careers.
Local Kentucky employers Cleary Construction, Ingram Barge Company, and Conley Bottom Resort are working directly with CareerViewXR to digitize real-life workplace settings for the immersive education platform.
Matt Chaussee also added:
We’re honored to add Kentucky to our growing list of states where we have produced CareerViewXR experiences. Thanks to KDE’s visionary approach and partnership between CareerViewXR and local employers, Kentucky students will now be able to explore a variety of careers available right in their own backyard. We’re also excited to share these Kentucky experiences with our growing subscriber base across the country. As a member of the Kentucky Chamber, we’re proud to contribute to positive workforce outcomes across the Commonwealth.”
Creating Accessible Career Training for Kentucky Students
“Career exploration should be engaging and accessible for every learner,” noted Gretta Hylton, Office of Special Education and Early Learning Associate Commissioner. The CareerViewXR platform, with its ever-increasing content library of career pathway VR experiences, looks to support this vision.
Hylton added:
With VR technology, students of all abilities can gain firsthand experiences in industries that are shaping Kentucky’s future workforce.
Cleary Construction is working with the team behind the Kentucky immersive career training roll-out. Carter Walden, CTO and Director of Workforce Development at Cleary Construction, explained that the firm is “grateful to partner with the Kentucky Department of Education and CareerViewXR to emphasize our in-high-demand careers that we offer.”
Walden explained:
Having these videos available for students will have a great impact in assisting them to realize what career path they may choose after high school. Whether they continue with a post-secondary education or go straight to work, Cleary Construction depends on both pathways. This project will help underground utility companies to build a younger workforce in highlighting these pathways for school kids at a young age.
On the other hand, John Roberts, CEO of Ingram Barge Company, said that VR field trips are an “exciting and innovative way to pull back the curtain on the maritime transportation industry.”
Roberts also said:
This industry offers students a long-term career path straight out of high school that students may have never considered. Our VR experience will allow students to experience the workday of a mariner living and working on a towboat as it navigates the river.
CareerViewXR’s deep collaboration project this month follows a year of deployment success across North Dakota schools. The company even worked directly with XR headset vendor veteran HTC VIVE to deploy 300 headsets to students in the region.
