Virtual Reality (VR)

Virtual Reality (VR) made a huge splash this past holiday season. Seems every store, from Target to Brook Stone, carried the headsets, some for as little as $10.00. But like most often with new technologies, education is the "late adopter." Only a handful of brave souls have brought VR into their classrooms. Yet, believe it or not, VR in education has been around since the early 90s. One of the early pioneering organizations, the University of Washington Human Interface Technology Laboratory, held summer camps with students aged 10 to 15 years old to conduct pilot studies with the technology. Their goal was to understand how VR could be useful in education. They discovered that VR could be a powerful learning tool for learners of diverse backgrounds and it could accommodate various learning styles. Other early explorers, discovered that VR could be a promising tool, helping students to learn abstract concepts by removing the barriers of symbols because VR provided the "verity" - or true life - examination of concepts, rather than the 2 dimensional examination of concepts through text, audio or video. In the 1980s, the military, which to this day still does much of its training through simulations or VR, discovered that its soldiers could in fact directly apply concepts they experienced and learned in the virtual world to real world applications. However, education has yet to discovered whether learned concepts can be applied to real world applications.

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Will VR be a powerful engine for developing empathy? Or will it be one more isolating technology that we find ourselves developing new limitations for "immersion time?"

Will it be a vehicle for "tricks and deception" or offer an opportunity for "immediacy and intimacy" into the lives and experiences of others? NYTimes Article (The Tricky Terrain of VR" M. Sullivan, 2015).

Beyond the Hype: 5 Ways to Think About VR and AR in Schools, (Abamu, 2017) - in this brief article you will read about a recent gathering of scientists and early VR explorers as they imagine the potential of VR for education.

A teacher describes how he uses New York Times VR in the classroom, (Presence Research, 2016) - This is an excellent first-person account of a teacher's experience using VR in his classroom. He also shares his lesson plan, giving us a clear understanding of how we might integrate VR into our classrooms.

What does the research say? I have curated several research articles concerning VR in education. You do not need to read each one from cover to cover. However, you need to inform yourself of the key findings for each article so that you can articulate your understanding for the TASKS associated with this module. One way to approach research articles is to first read the Abstract, then the Conclusion, then the Findings. If you have time and you are interested, go back and read about the study's Methodology, Background and Introductions. Annotate your understanding as you read:

• The Use of Augmented Reality in Formal Education, (Saltan & Arslan, 2016) - a meta study concerning the benefits of AR in education
• Effectiveness of virtual reality-based instruction on students’ learning outcomes in K-12 and higher education: A meta-analysis, (Merchant, et al., 2014) - a meta analysis of VR in education
• Learning and Teaching in Virtual Worlds: Implications of Virtual Reality for Education, (Moore, 1995)
• Virtual Reality in Education, (Byrne, 1994) - a case study of VR in practice

Move onto 9.2 when you've completed the readings in this section.