The Future of VR Education
Pitfalls and Potential Game-changers
“It’s a stimulating, futuristic technology that can hopefully inspire wonder and engage students who typically have a tough time engaging with curriculum.”
I was excited when I sat down to talk with a university professor about the prospect of collaborating on a Virtual Reality project. He was the director of visual effects and animation in the program, so I expected he would bring a fresh perspective in terms of potential ways to experiment with how VR could be applied in a classroom setting, and tested/researched at the university.
My excitement lasted until about halfway through the conversation, at which point it quickly began to fade. Although the professor was extremely knowledgeable about computer animation, and experienced in terms of teaching it, his first idea about what we could build together was the exact phrase I was hoping not to hear.
He said, “It would be really cool if we could build a VR Classroom.”
The “VR Classroom”
Imagine that you are a young student, and your teacher just announced to the classroom that everyone was going to use Virtual Reality in today’s lesson. That would be thrilling, wouldn’t it? It’s not only a hands-on activity that will serve as a break from the monotony, it’s a stimulating, futuristic technology that can hopefully inspire wonder and engage students who typically have a tough time engaging with curriculum.
Now, imagine that you put this device on your head, and prepare yourself as you are teleported into a limitless 3D animated world where literally anything is possible. For context- take a look at how far we’ve progressed in terms of technology, in less than a century, to get to where we are now.
DECADES OF INNOVATION have led you to this exact moment in time where it’s finally possible to transform the environment around you into any 3D visual scene that human imagination can muster and…
…you’re back in a classroom.
A Pattern of Thinking
This particular pet peeve of mine stems from what I’ve observed is a common, but flawed way of thinking about how to use technology in education.
The truth is, the EdTech industry is at a place where everyone involved is still learning exactly how technology can not only be used in the classroom, but used to solve clearly defined problems in relation to student learning outcomes.
In other words, we don’t just want to use technology and hope that it makes a difference by some miracle, we want to intentionally pick specific technological solutions that have a greater chance of making a difference in how well students are learning. We, as educators, parents, and developers of education technology need to move past the notion that there is a relationship between products that are more engaging (or cool) at face value, and products that have a tangible, measurable improvement in student learning.
Here’s an example of a VR app that has the potential to achieve exactly that.
InMind 2
One Step Forward
This VR experience takes a step in the right direction. One of the most difficult things for students to visualize is the human brain. The beauty of VR is that you can take the viewer anywhere- and InMind 2 does a wonderful job of guiding you through physical and chemical details of the brain in an interactive, gamified fashion.
But Does it “Work”?
Does the app actually work? This is the question we should be asking ourselves. Not “work” in the sense that you can install it, and it runs without any issues (although that is important). We need to find out if it “works” in the sense that it actually improves students’ ability to learn neuroscience.
The best way to achieve this would be to conduct a research study. Currently, if you scour the websites of educational VR apps, you will be disappointed in the lack of information about whether or not research has been conducted in a classroom trial.
Until we start asking this question for every educational technology tool (not just VR) that is marketed as an app that helps students learn, we will be beholden to the flawed pattern of thinking that eventually devours every EdTech trend that ever existed.
We shouldn’t let VR in education just become another trend. Something as beautiful and inspiring as InMind 2 should have the chance to develop based on the results of well-designed research studies. It should have the “wow” factor, and the “my students mastered this subject material” factor. It’s the future that VR deserves.
