Virtual Reality (VR) in Education

In the era of digital devices, we have the opportunity to learn better with technology. Virtual Reality (VR) seems to be the natural next step for the evolution of education. In this article, we show how Virtual Reality can change the way educational content is delivered

Before delving into the details of how VR in education will help enhance the learning process, it's important to understand why we need to improve the quality of education in the first place. Historically, most technologies designed to facilitate learning focused on enabling access to information - facts and observations about the world. Before computers, we had a powerful tool that helped us preserve and transmit facts: books. In the age of digital technologies, books have been converted into eBooks. Modern search engines make finding facts very easy - with just a few clicks you find answers to many questions. Although knowledge has become more easily accessible to many people, the current approach to education has two major problems:

Teaching methods focus on providing facts; however, having access to and absorbing a lot of information is not the same as learning. Being informed is not the same as being educated.

Too much information received in a short time can easily overwhelm students. As a result, they become bored, disengaged, and often don't precisely understand why they are learning about a subject in the first place.

Virtual Reality can be used to enhance learning and student engagement. VR education can change the way educational content is delivered; it works on the premise of creating a virtual world - real or imagined - and allows users not just to see it, but also to interact with it. Being immersed in what you're learning motivates you to fully understand it. It requires less cognitive load to process the information. Here are just a few features that make Virtual Reality in education so powerful:

When students read about something, they often want to experience it. With VR, they are not limited to word descriptions or book illustrations; they can explore the subject and see how things fit together. Thanks to the sense of presence (immersion) that VR provides, students can learn about a subject by experiencing it. It's easy to forget that VR experiences are not real - the body truly believes it is in a new place. This sensation engages the mind in a remarkable way.

Technologies like science laboratories are fantastic - they let students understand how things work based on practical experience. But such technologies are expensive and almost impossible to scale. A virtual reality headset can almost entirely mimic a whole laboratory with the right software. All you need is a VR headset and a computer.

A simple virtual reality headset can already function as a complete laboratory.

It's a well-known fact that people learn best by doing; however, if you inspect modern education, you will see how little learning actually happens by doing. Students are focused on reading instructions instead of applying them in practice. VR in education offers an experiential anchor for the instruction. With VR education, students are inspired to discover for themselves. Students have the opportunity to learn by doing rather than passively reading.

Visceral reactions to what we experience are fundamental to forming memories. VR in education makes it easy to engage students all the time and make experiences unforgettable.

Having Virtual Reality in education is not only useful for using content, but also for creating content. By giving students powerful tools like Tilt Brush, you help stimulate their creativity.

Many people are visual learners - VR is truly beneficial for this group of learners. Instead of reading about things, students actually see the things they are learning about. Being able to visualize complex functions or mechanisms makes them easier to understand. Users are ready to embrace new technology. The first idea that comes to everyone's mind when they think about VR technology is an entertainment experience. Many designers see VR as an extension of the gaming industry. It's true that VR has traditionally been devoted to gaming, but things are changing. According to a recent study conducted by Greenlight VR, the need for education weighs heavier than the desire for game content - 63.9 percent versus 61 percent.

VR technology can be used to engage students in topics related to geography, history, or literature by providing a deeply immersive sense of place and time. Imagine geography lessons where you can visit any place in the world - this kind of experience is much more enriching than just reading about it. With VR, they are not limited to word descriptions or book illustrations; they can explore the subject and see how things fit together. Google Expeditions is a good example of an app that provides such an experience. Expedition is a library of excursions available to ordinary smartphone users. Each journey consists of VR panoramas, and the journeys range from the Great Wall of China to Mars. People around the world can visit places that are virtually impossible to visit physically. Google has tested this app in hundreds of schools worldwide. The project was extraordinarily successful: Google took over 1 million students in 11 countries on expeditions.

VR is a good solution for highly technical training fields such as the military or medical industry. The main challenge for medical students learning anatomy, for example, is understanding the body in three dimensions and how different systems fit together. VR education can help solve this problem. A good example is the VR system used by Mendel Grammar School in Opava City, Czech Republic, which helps students in biology lessons learn more about the anatomy of the eye. The team working on this project used a Leap Motion controller and specially adapted Oculus Rift headsets to provide an innovative way to learn anatomy.

Getting exposure to different careers is an essential part of the learning process. From early childhood, we dream about what we want to be when we grow up, and those dreams are usually inspired by the professionals in our lives. Often, we gain this insight through internships.

Another advantage of Virtual Reality in education is the ability to increase students' exposure to a career. It enhances people's ability to put themselves in others' shoes. Career expeditions show what it's like to work in a field: students can explore a day in someone's career, see what a person studies, and understand what a person likes or dislikes about their job. As a result, the experience becomes familiar to students.

I never teach my pupils, I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.

Part of the most valuable knowledge we gain does not come from what we hear from teachers, but rather from collegiality and debate. VR education provides the opportunity to make learning experiences social by allowing students to interact with each other. With avatars and mapped facial expressions, people can come together to discuss, synthesize, and learn from each other.

With VR, we can bridge the gap between teachers and students. With VR, distance learning tools can bring teachers and students together in the same room with digital representations of themselves - teachers can teleport into the VR world and guide students through their experiences.

• Immersive: designers should strive to create the feeling that users are undergoing an experience. For instance, if you are developing a history app, bring history to life for students.
• Meaningful: meaning is very important to students. You can't create a good VR learning experience without a good story. That's why it's so important to promote the art of storytelling. Stories simply provide the best means of getting messages across that are not only heard and understood, but also inspire and lead to action.
• Adaptable: as Albert Einstein once said: 'I never teach my students, I only try to create the conditions in which they can learn.' VR experiences should allow students to explore at their own pace. The app should provide full control over the difficulty level. Designers should ascertain how students learn and then use this knowledge to design VR products that facilitate effective learning.
• Measurable: every educational tool must have a measured impact. Teachers should be able to track educational metrics, so they can measure the resulting knowledge of a subject. When designing experiences for VR education, it's essential to choose suitable metrics and clarify what criterion will be used to measure success and failure.

The transition from analog teaching practices to digital will change what teaching looks like. The role of a teacher will shift from content delivery to content facilitation. Teachers will focus on creating conditions for exploration, rather than delivering ready-made knowledge.

It's clear that we're in the early stages of VR - and it will continue to evolve. However, technology will continue to push the boundaries of how immersive VR can be. We're even going to see improvements in eye tracking and body tracking over the next few years. What we consider to be an immersive experience today will be seen as table stakes in the not too distant future. 

Virtual reality is expensive hardware that poses a significant barrier for many users. If we analyze the success of Google Expeditions, it's clear that Google has been able to reach so many students because the hardware was truly accessible. To make VR education accessible to the majority of users, it's important to focus on creating VR experiences for devices users already have and turning these into powerful educational tools. A phone that we carry in our pockets and €20 to €100 headset devices - like Google Cardboard or Samsung Gear VR - should be sufficient to provide students with good VR experiences.

Virtual reality in education is visibly on the horizon and it will undoubtedly change the world as we know it. Twenty-first century classrooms will become technologically advanced learning spaces, where VR technology will significantly enhance student engagement and learning. VR experiences will inspire a whole new generation of young and smart students, ready to innovate and change the world. At the same time, the next big thing in education is no longer dependent on technology, but rather on a teacher's decision to move forward and use these technologies in the classroom. The global goal should be to make knowledge available, accessible, and affordable to everyone on Earth.

Want to talk more about integrating virtual reality into education or have practical questions about virtual reality hardware? Feel free to contact us!