hile looking at the beneficial effects of implementing a social network in education, one must also consider the negative aspects. Social networks such as VR have been under development for many years. Gershon Dublon, professor of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) Media Lab, and Joseph A. Paradiso, an electrical engineer also at MIT’s Media Lab, explain how this does not mean that networks are perfect. Existing devices that augment our reality such as “Google Glass, tend to act as third-party agents on our shoulders, suggesting contextually relevant information to their wearer” augmenting situations (Dublon and Paradiso 6). This augmentation can be used for educational purposes but networks such as Google Glass “are often disruptive, even annoying, in a way that our sensory systems would never be”(Dublon and Paradiso 6). If the purpose of VR is to make students more engaged, then disruptive functions would defeat it. They would distract the student away from the primary goal and lead to disengagement. This problem is easy to combat, however. Educational leaders should create programs that aren’t disruptive. For example, if a student is in a surgical training VR simulator, and ads that contain sites to buy medical tools were to show up, they would distract the student from the simulator ultimately causing them to make a mistake. Although this mistake wouldn’t have outside effects due to the nature of VR that “allows students control over their learning in a consequence-free, explorative manner”(Hu-Au and Lee 5), it would distract the student leading to an overall decrease in understanding of the content being shown. A designer could design the simulator to not show any ads or disruptive tools or minimize the effect of them by minimizing their disruptiveness.

Another limitation that comes up frequently when debating the implementation of VR into educational facilities is cost. VR technology can be expensive, with the highest quality being as pricey as $50,000. However, the reality is that many VR kits don’t cost a substantial amount. In general, plastic and cardboard models carry out the same task as the higher quality models. According to Russell Holly, an expert on virtual reality devices, “in most apps it’s nearly impossible to tell the difference between the [lower and higher quality] implementations”(Holly 2). This means that the differences between a low-quality and a high-quality VR headset are negligible and that both carry out its purpose. They would still allow students to become more engaged with the material. These lower-quality headsets can be implemented into schools’ curriculums without being too costly. If an underfinanced public school wants to introduce virtual reality into their classrooms, they would easily be able to, by opting for the cheaper VR headset as the user experien