Educational VR Review
As a history teacher, I am incredibly interested in the VR
experience for learners. Every history
teacher strives to provide the first person perspective when trying to teach events
in true historical context. Now with the
VR, students can have a more authentic first-person experience. I personally see the tremendous learning
value of being able to put a learner into the actual culture, location, space,
and time of a people. To me, this takes
the experience and engages all of the senses in ways that words in a book, or
film clips cannot possibly do. While
doing research for this project, I came across some great sites and a multitude
of apps available for education. Since I
am an avid Discovery user, both as an educator and as a private consumer, I
came across Discoveryvr.com. Discovery’s
VR experience offers several ways to watch, including Mobile Device options, VR
headsets, and 360 Video (http://www.discoveryvr.com/). I also need to mention that this site offers
information on the Google Cardboard, the much more economical solution for
those interested. It would seem this
tool is still very new, and there are limited videos and experiences targeted
specifically for education. Since I do
not have a VR headset, I watched the Civil War 360 videos in a browser. I must admit the entire time I was watching
them, I wondered what it would be like to experience with a VR headset. It really is difficult to provide an actual
critique or review on these products without the full experience. However, I will say that I will be keeping an
eye on DiscoveryVR and am intrigued where they will go with this. One can access more education-specific
information on this tool at the following link:
http://discoveryeducation.com/DiscoveryNow/vr.cfm.
VR Review Non-Educational Industry
While perusing other Virtual Reality experiences that were not
necessarily developed specifically for the education industry, I came across a
TIME virtual experience that has been created about Pearl Harbor. This VR experience is only available on
Viveport, which one must have an active subscription to use (Rothman, 2016). However, I can see value in adapting this
experience for education and using it as an additional tool to bring history
alive for students. Reading through the
reviews of this experience, it seems to garner mixed emotions. Some enjoyed the experience, while others
were disappointed in the experience. Because
I do not have access to the required VR headset for this experience, I can only
go by the screen shots, article, and existing reviews about this VR experience
on Pearl Harbor. I still believe there
is value in exploring this further and that if schools or classrooms already
have access to this technology, it may be worth investigating this and other VR
experiences from TIME.
Conclusion
When it comes to this type of immersive technology, the user
expects an ‘out-of-this-world’ experience.
Because of this, I think developers may have a difficult time finding
that happy medium between consumer expectations and meaningful experiences. We also have to ensure that the VR and AR
experiences offer quality learning. I
think that this may be where the challenge lies within the industry. Relying on both programmers and educators to
come together to create an authentic VR/AR experience that truly enhances
learning. When we look at taking VR
experiences not necessarily created for K-12 students and the K-12 classroom,
we have to be cautious as to the actual intended learning goal and outcome, and
that the tool is actually in alignment with that goal. If the user is going to engage with objects
and material in a VR experience, what is it that we want the student walking
away with? When we start utilizing these
powerful tools in the classroom, they must be embedded in pedagogy and
curriculum. Giving a hand-selected group
of teachers the ability to explore and use the various AR/VR tools available
and share their lessons, ideas, and recommendations would be a great way for
districts to begin this process.
References
DiscoveryVR: http://www.discoveryvr.com/
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