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Procedia Engineering 29 (2012) 4287 – 4291

2012 International Workshop on Information and Electronics Engineering (IWIEE)

Application Expectation of Virtual Reality in Basketball

Teaching
Hua-ping Yao, Yu-zhong Liu, Chang-song Han∗
Deparment of Physical Education,Xiaogan University, 432100,China,

Abstract

With the rapid development of modern science and technology, the science and technology with electronic
information technology as core has been applied in more and more teaching activities, however, an important content
in modern teaching methods is to master and apply the modern teaching equipments and methods. This article use
literature and information method to elaborate the basic concept, features and types of virtual reality technology as
well as the role playing in basketball teaching. Finally, its applications in basketball theory teaching, technology
teaching, and tactics teaching and teaching match were analyzed to provide scientific reference for basketball
teaching reform in future.

© 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of Harbin University
of Science and Technology. Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.

Keyword: Virtual Reality, Basketball Teaching, Application Expectation

1. Introduction

Basketball sport is not only popular with students but also an important class of school physical sport
teaching. Basketball teaching has been performed by interpretation and demonstration of teachers in a
long time, however, for a quick and changeable group item; the application of only normal teaching
method has brought about certain limitations. With the continuous development of informatization,
networking and digitization of sports teaching, combing basketball teaching with computer technology
and multimedia technology, numerous multimedia teaching course wares of pictures, character, sound and
graphic in one have been developed to assist basketball teaching, which effectively improved the

∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +8613995850373.

E-mail address: saiqi1314@163.com.

1877-7058 © 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.
doi:10.1016/j.proeng.2012.01.659
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basketball teaching. But this course ware is single, and most of the course wares still remain in the stage
of “Audio-visual education”, which focus on the theory teaching and single technology showing with a
bad communication. Compared to the traditional basketball teaching, the difference is just that computer
replaces the teachers to provide a complete and correct action demonstration for students from sense
organ, and essentially, the students still accept knowledge passively, which is not helpful for students to
master technology ability. To improve the current situation of basketball teaching, virtual reality has been
introduced in this paper into basketball teaching and its feasibility also has been analyzed to provide
scientific reference for basketball teaching reform.

2. Virtual Reality

2.1. Concept

Virtual Reality technology (VR for short) is a real-time expression of using computer to generate and
simulate the sense world of human beings, sometimes it is also called virtual environment. It is a new
technology in computer field, which is compressively developed by combining computer graphics
technology, multimedia technology, human computer interaction technology, network technology, and
stereo display technology as well as emulation technique. Via the technology, dynamic simulation of real
world could be realized, and generated dynamic environment could response currently to the users’
gestures and language command, making users and simulated environment to set up a real-time
interactive relationship, then, vivid immersed sense is produced, in another word, users could observe the
virtual world produced by computer, listen the vivid sound, interactively operate in virtual environment
with a sense of reality, talk, even smell smells and produce tactile sense and taste sense.

2.2. Main features

Virtual Reality technology is a kind of technology that computer is used to generate a simulated
environment and many sensing equipments are used to help users get into the environment to realize that
users could directly perform natural interaction, and Virtual Reality technology is also another computer
system technology which could create and experience virtual environment. Virtual Reality technology
contains 4 main features as follows:
①Multi-sensation, it means that except common visual sensation of computer, there are still auditory
perception, touch perception and motion perception, even taste sensation, smell sensation, perception etc.
Ideal virtual reality should include perceptions that all people have.
②Existence sensation, also known as immersed sense, it means the reality level that users exist in the
simulated environment as leading role, in anther word, except the visual sense that computer has, there
are sill auditory perception, force perception, touch perception, sport perception, even taste sensation,
smell sensation etc. Ideal simulated environment should have perceptions that all people have to reach
that users are difficult to distinguish true and false.
③Interactivity, it means the operational level that participants operate the objects in the simulated
environment and natural level that participants get feedback from environment. For example, he could
directly use his hands to grab the objects in simulated environment, at this time, he could feel that there is
something in his hand, and could feel the weight of objects, in addition, the grabbed objects in field of
view will move following the movement of hands.
④Autonomy, it means the level that objects in simulated environment move independently based on
the operator’s requirements according to their models and regulations. For example, when pushed by
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external force, objects will move to the direction of the force, and they may turn over, or fall on the floor
from the desk.

2.3. Basic types

Based on the feature differences trended by virtual reality, current virtual reality system could be
divided into 4 types: desktop type, reinforcement type, immersion type and network distributed type of
virtual reality system.
Desktop type of virtual reality system utilizes PC or medium, low class of workstations as virtual
environment generator. And computer screen or single wall projections is the window by which
participants observe the virtual environment. Due to the interruption of surround real environment, its
immersed sense is bad, but its cost is relatively low, so it is still popular.
Immersion type of virtual reality system mainly utilizes various high-grade workstations, high-
performance graphics accelerating card and interactive devices, by ways of sound, force and touch, and
effectively shield the surround real environment( e.g., use the helmet mounted display, 3 or 6 surfaces
projection wall) to immerse totally into the virtual world.
Reinforcement type of virtual reality system allows the participants to see objects in real environment,
at the same time, graphics in virtual environment are stacked on the real objects. Penetrating type of
wearing type displays could stack the graphics generating by computer and real current environment
together. This system mainly depends on the virtual reality location tracking technology to reach an
accurate overlap.
Network distributed type of virtual reality system is a large network system composed by types
mentioned above, which could be used in the research of more complicated task. Its foundation is
distributed interactive simulation.

3. Role of virtual reality playing in the basketball teaching

Virtual reality realizes the spot of human. Participants and virtual reality are both the two aspects of
interwork and interaction, which create an “Autonomous learning”environment and the traditional
learning way of “teaching promotes learning” is replaced by a new learning way that learners receive
knowledge and skill by interaction of self and information as well as environment.

3.1. Sports injury in basketball teaching could be avoided

With the development of modern basketball sport, its difficulty level gets higher and higher,
antagonism of basketball and competition of scrambling for high altitude a get fiercer and fiercer, at the
same time, possibility of sports injury get bigger and bigger. During the basketball teaching, to ensure
safety, teachers would not encourage students to actively fight against each other; however, harm accident
is still unavoidable, and it also blocks the basketball learning passion of students to a certain degree. But
virtual practice via virtual reality technology could be used to eliminate the worry. In the virtual
environment, students could fight against the virtual opponents bravely, without necessity of worrying
about any dangers. Even students could do various actions with big difficulty degree, for example, all
kind of dunk actions.

3.2. It can make up for the condition shortage of basketball teaching

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During modern basketball teaching activities, some teaching and training courses often could not be
done due to the weather, sites, devices and expenses. Virtual reality system could be used to make up for
these shortages, and students could practice in the virtual environment and they can get the same
experience like real environment, in addition, man-machine interactive features that virtual reality
technology has is also favorable for individualized education.

3.3. Limits of room and time could be broken thoroughly

Limits of room and time could be broken thoroughly by using virtual reality technology. The invisible
changes or mater which can not exist in real world could be realized by virtual reality technology. For
example, in the one hand shoulder shot teaching of basketball, common multimedia teaching just slowly
replays this technical movement in there or four angles, however, virtual reality technology could be used
to observe in various angles, by which may effectively improve the action and skill learning of students.

4. The Application Foreseeing of Virtual reality technology in basketball teaching

4.1. The Application Foreseeing of Virtual reality technology in knowledge teaching of basketball

The theoretical knowledge system of Basketball is very extensive, and it summarizes the whole history
of basketball, different genres in each developing period, the innovation, formation and application of
strategy ,the referee rules and the organization management of basketball competion,etc,.The students can
not fully understand basketball just by watching video and the explanation of teachers, but the virtual
reality technology can make the different situation .For the general theoretical knowledge, such as
basketball development history, technique and tactics innovation and the various characteristics of genres,
we can integrate resources by virtual network space and collect a variety of basketball-related resources ,
establish a special virtual basketball library, then create variety of virtual situations to express the study
contents in different sides, different points, finally, re-integrate such situations into the functional network
through the virtual reality technology, and build a virtual learning scenarios and database to lead students
to feel the past, present and future of basketball .For some abstract theoretical concepts, they can be
realized visualization through virtual reality technology for students to understand and give students
more impression.

4.2. The Application Foreseeing of Virtual reality technology in basketball technology teaching

The traditional teaching of basketball skills is mainly done through teacher’ explanation and
demonstration, and the skills study of students is affected by a variety of factors, such as whether the
demonstration of teachers is standard or not, the intelligibility of students and so on. Similarly, the
teachers will judge the students skills through visual observation in most cases and it will lead to a great
difference in teaching effectiveness. But students can play a role and devoted themselves in a virtual
learning environment through immersive and interactivity of virtual reality; therefore it is very conducive
to students' skills study. Such an example of the explaining of underhand lay-up shot technology, students
can observe the technical movements in virtuality through multimedia technology while make exchange
with the virtual body, feel the sequence and controlling of force from body parts, and shar the sense of
movement . Therefore the Virtual reality technology will enable students not only to see the correct action,
but also to understand the sequence of force-making from muscles, strengthen the student's three
dimensional feeling. If the students’ body deviate from the technology requirements of virtual human
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body, the dialogue between students and virtual human body will come to a halt, therefore students can
master the technology faster and more accurate after such a physically immersive experience.

4.3. The Application Foreseeing of Virtual reality technology in basketball technology and tactics
teaching

Basketball is a collective sport, especially focusing on tactic cooperation, so the tactical training is a
very important content. However, the basketball tactics are most changeful, especially in some offensive
cooperation. Students are difficult to fully understand the opportunity judgment and the selection of
tactics in the learning process, in addition, it is also a headache for most teachers, and therefore the virtual
reality technology can simulate one or more tactics routes in one set tactics, and enable students to
communicate with their tactics partner through interaction equipment. It will show green light if the
student's tactical operation is consistent with the programmed tactics, however, if the student's actions are
violated to the programmed tactics, such action will be forced to stop and this system will inform the
students that this tactic has failed. Therefore students will be able to feel their action and movement route
with their own personal experience in each tactical training, and get know how to cooperate with their
teammates under different circumstances and improve tactical awareness.

5. Conclusions

The virtual reality technology can assist the teaching of basketball, not only can build a new, ever-
changing teaching environment for teaching, but also can provide a interact, intuitive learning
environment and methods with self-exploration for learners meanwhile stimulate students interest in
learning in many ways as well as improve the quality and effectiveness of teaching and learning.
Although there are still greater difficulty to use virtual reality technology to assist teaching in the present
circumstances, but I believe the virtual reality technology used in completed basketball teaching will
surely become a reality in the near future with the development of information technology of physical
education, the popularization of network, the cost reduction of computer hardware and software and the
update of Virtual reality and network technology.

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