Week 6 - Virtual Reality

In recent years, Virtual Reality (VR) has made its way into our classrooms, and is being used to transform the way in which our students interact and learn from the world around us. Immersive VR (IVR) is becoming available on a mass level, with more and more children having accessibility, opening up the possibilities for its use in education.

IVR is typically defined as the use of virtual reality with a head mounted display (HMD) (Southgate, 2018). A huge advantage of this type of VR is its ability to bring abstract concepts to life, giving students the ability to explore historical events, scientific phenomenons or travel around the globe from the comfort of their classroom. Southgate et al, (2019) tells us that when studying the use of VR in classrooms students were more engaged and excited with the VR than they were with a 'normal' lesson, which can be great, however, they go on to explain that this sometimes meant that students were so excited and focused on the VR technology itself that they were not paying attention to what they were supposed to be doing in the lesson, so this must be regulated if it is to be used in a classroom.

There are plenty of programs that students can use in the classroom to foster their creativity when it comes to VR. One is particular that I really like is called CoSpaces. CoSpaces is a program for the computer that allows students to create a world and put together anything they can think of. They are given a range of objects, animals, shapes and backgrounds to choose from, with the ability to also upload their own media. This creative freedom can be so useful for nurturing a students creativity.

From there students are able to take a VR headset and explore their world, as if they are standing in there with it. As a teacher this can be an awesome tool to push students to want to create and learn in areas where they may not have showed much enthusiasm.

Despite the incredible upsides of VR, there are some downsides that must be considered. The technology can be quite expensive, and some schools may not be able to justify spending money on it to give their students access to it. As well as this, some students may experience discomfort and even motion sickness in VR, which could seriously limit teaching effectiveness. As a precaution, teachers should always have a non VR option for students who aren't able to use it.

Reference List:

Southgate, E. (2018). Immersive virtual reality, children, and school education: A literature review for teachers (Report No. 6). Newcastle DICE Research. https://ericasouthgateonline.files.wordpress.com/2018/06/southgate_2018_immersive_vr_literature_review_for_teachers.pdf

Southgate, E., Smith ,S. P., Cividino, C., Saxby, S., Kilham, J., Eather, G., Scevak, J,. Summerville, D., Buchanan, R., Bergin, C. (2019) Embedding immersive virtual reality in classrooms: Ethical, organisational and educational lessons in bridging research and practice.(Report). International Journal of Child-Computer Interaction. 2019;19:19-29. doi:10.1016/j.ijcci.2018.10.002