Outline of a VR History App

Below, I outline what an example of what a VR History App could potentially look and feel like. For the reasons why I believe such an app would be important, be sure to check out my previous article here.

Let’s begin by narrowing our focus. Rather than a catch-all education app, let’s outline a simple VR History app for high school students.

The User

Next, let’s take a look an an example user: a 16 year old high school student, let’s call him John Park. John is taking IB History, and although he likes the subject, he’s struggling to stay interested. He wants to find another way to learn the material that will be more interesting and improve his grades. John might be saying something like this: “I like history, but I find the way it’s taught in schools is pretty boring. It’s just a lot of reading”.

How can we solve this?

Platform

Let’s start with talking about what platform we’d use. Obviously requiring students to spend $1500 on a VR headset is a recipe for failure, so let’s limit this to mobile VR. Google Cardboard is obviously king for accessibility right now, and in my opinion, that remains the most important hardware criteria. Perhaps a few years down the road, Google Daydream will be more dominant, and we’ll be able take advantage of its more advanced software, but for now the $15 Cardboard, which utilizes the smartphone everybody already owns will suffice. As for software accessibility, students can either download the app themselves, or schools can buy bulk licenses of the software to provide free access to their students.

Controls

Ideally I’d like to keep controls simple, so that students can focus on the learning experience rather than a complex control scheme. All that would really be required is one input button, coupled with a viewing reticle. This way, students could be focus on the viewing experience, but still be able to explore and interact with the world around them.

Content

The content itself would be the most important aspect of this project. The focus here is to improve the communication and interest of the subject, without compromising the educational content. These don’t have to be contradictory aims.

Putting students into the world they are studying is of the utmost importance. Great work has been done on putting students into different places (see the Google Exploration projects), but what if we could deliver that same quality in putting students into different times. Students fail to see the importance of historical events when they are just words on a page, but seeing the horror of the black death up close, or witnessing the glory of Tang Dynasty China as if one was there, these are things that can make the study of history suddenly seem immediate and relevant.

I’d like to see this content framed as a journey, an exploration into another world, something fun and wonder inducing for the student. The main lessons would be set up as an on-rails experience through the VR world. Why on-rails? Whether we like it or not, most curriculums have set material that needs to be covered. If students like John want to improve their grades, we need to respond to this need. An on-rails experience allows us to keep focus on the necessary lesson material.

However, because we also want students to be self motivated learners, we have an opportunity to offer additional learning material. This additional material could be explored using a roaming waypoint system, during breaks between the main lessons. These materials could also include archival photos/videos as well as images of artifacts from the period, in order to give better context to what the student is seeing.

Conclusion

There remains much more thinking and iteration to be done if one was to undertake such an app. However, what this process does demonstrate, is the importance of taking into account the multidimensionality that VR affords. More so than a simple educational video or textbook, VR requires an incredible amount of elements to consider. However this multidimensionality, while remaining VR’s greatest challenge in the education space, also remains its greatest strength.

Quick Thoughts on AR

• Augmented reality has the potential to complement the learning experience as well. It potentially will allow students to retain the social elements of classroom learning, and continue to be in visual contact with their teacher, while experiencing the benefits of VR education. If I was building an educational VR experience, I would certainly be keeping an eye on these emerging technologies.