A Collaboration Between VR and Education

by Lauren Mahoney

When the Imaginarium opened, Dr. Elizabeth Day wanted to use it. And in her Technology and Education class, she found the perfect way. The class is focused on educational reform; class time is filled with discussions regarding the role of technology in education and ways to make lessons more engaging so that children are motivated to stay in school.

Previously, for the class’s final project, Dr. Day had her students develop enhanced digital lessons using videos. This year, in collaboration with the Imaginarium, she modified the project to focus on how using virtual reality can make class concepts more captivating.

Students are tasked with choosing any grade from fifth grade up, and then deciding whether to focus on meeting Common Core or California educational standards. They must develop lesson plans that meet the standards while incorporating virtual reality experiences to make the lessons more engaging. Students then discuss whether they felt these lesson plans would help children better retain important concepts.

Dr. Day introduced this project last quarter, and students developed lesson plans in every content area, teaching physics, language arts, meditation, math, and more.

There are real-life limitations of course; most schools don’t have the money to buy dozens of virtual reality headsets, and teachers don’t have the time and resources to develop new lesson plans incorporating VR. However, this project was a unique way to get Dr. Day’s students to think about the potential for the virtual reality world and the education world to meet somewhere in the middle.

More technology isn’t always better, and can be distracting. Yet if its use makes lessons- and school in general- more engaging, we should take advantage of its potential to bring concepts to life.