Virtual Reality (VR) in education

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

Before we dive into the details of how VR in education will help improve the learning process, it is important to understand why we need to improve the quality of education in the first place. Historically, most technologies designed to aid learning have focused on enabling access to information – facts and observations about the world. Before computers, we had a powerful tool that helped us store and transmit facts: books. In the digital age, books are converted into eBooks. Modern search engines make finding facts very simple – with just a few clicks, you can find answers to many questions. While knowledge has become more readily available to more people, the current approach to education has two major issues:

Teaching methods focus on delivering 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 period can easily overwhelm students. Consequently, they become bored, disengaged, and often do not understand why they are learning about a subject in the first place.

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

When students read about a subject, 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 offers, students can learn about a subject by experiencing it. It is easy to forget that what they are seeing is not real – the body truly believes it is in a new place. This feeling engages the mind in a remarkable way.

Technologies like science labs are great – they allow students to understand how things work based on practical experience. But such technologies are expensive and almost impossible to scale. With the right software, a simple virtual reality headset can simulate almost an entire laboratory. All you need is a headset and a computer.

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

It is a well-known fact that people learn best by doing; however, when you inspect modern education, you will see how little learning actually happens by doing. Students are focused on reading instructions instead of using them in practice. VR in education provides an experiential anchor for instruction. With VR, 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 content consumption but also for content creation. 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. By being able to visualise complex functions or mechanisms, they are easier to understand. Users are ready to embrace new technology. The first idea that comes to mind when thinking about VR is an entertainment experience. Many designers see VR as an extension of gaming. It is true that VR has traditionally been dedicated to gaming, but things are changing. According to a recent study conducted by Greenlight VR, the need for education outweighs the desire for game content – 63.9 percent versus 61 percent.

VR can be used to engage students in subjects 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 type 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 offers this kind of experience. Expedition is a library of field trips that are available to regular smartphone users. Each journey consists of a series of 360-degree images, and the trips range from the Great Wall of China to Mars. People worldwide can visit places that are almost impossible to visit physically. Google has tested this app in hundreds of schools around the world. The project was extraordinarily successful: Google took more than 1 million students in 11 countries on expeditions.

VR is a good solution for highly technical training fields such as the military or the 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 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 classes learn more about the anatomy of the eye. The team working on this project used a Leap Motion controller and specially adapted Oculus Rift to provide an innovative way to study anatomy.

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

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

Some of the most important knowledge we gain does not come from what we hear from teachers but rather from peer interactions and debates. VR offers 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, synthesise, and learn from each other.

With VR, we can bridge the gap between teachers and students.Met VR kunnen tools voor afstandsonderwijs docenten en studenten samenbrengen in dezelfde kamer met digitale representaties van zichzelf - leraren kunnen teleporteren in de VR-wereld en studenten begeleiden bij hun ervaringen.

• Immersive: designers should strive to create the sensation that users are living an experience. For example, if you're developing a geschiedenis-app, bring history to life for students.
• Meaningful: meaning is extremely important for students. You can't create a good VR-leerervaring without a good story. Therefore, it's crucial to foster storytelling. Stories are simply the best way to convey messages that are not only heard and understood but also inspire and prompt action.
• Customisable: as Albert Einstein once said, “I never teach my pupils, I only provide the conditions in which they can learn.” VR-ervaringen should enable students to explore at their own pace. The app should offer full control over the difficulty level. Designers should determine how students learn and then use this knowledge to design VR-producten that make effective learning possible.
• Measurable: every educational tool must have a measurable impact. Teachers need to be able to track the metric data of instruction so they can gauge the resultant knowledge of a subject. When designing experiences for VR-onderwijs, it is essential to choose appropriate metrics and make it clear which criteria will be used to measure success and failure.

The transition from analogue teaching practices to digital will change the way teaching looks. The role of a teacher will shift from content delivery to content facilitation. Teachers will focus on creating conditions for exploration, rather than on delivering kant-en-klare knowledge.

It is clear that we are in the early stages of VR - and it will continue to evolve. However, technology will keep pushing the boundaries of how immersive VR can become. Over the coming years, we will even see improvements in eye tracking and body tracking. What we consider an immersive experience today will be seen as a baseline in the near future.

Virtual reality is expensive hardware that presents a significant barrier for many users. If we analyse the success of Google Expeditions, it is evident that Google was able to reach so many students because the hardware was truly accessible. To make VR-onderwijs accessible to the majority of users, it is important to focus on creating VR-ervaringen for devices that users already have and converting them into powerful educational tools. A phone we carry in our pockets and €20,- to €100,- headset-apparaten - like Google Cardboard or Samsung Gear VR - should be enough to provide students with good VR-ervaringen.

Virtual reality in education is visible on the horizon and it will undoubtedly change the world as we know it. Eenentwintigste-eeuwse classrooms will become technologically advanced learning spaces, significantly enhancing VR-technologie student engagement and learning. VR-ervaringen will inspire an entirely new generation of young and bright students, ready to innovate and change the world. At the same time, the next big thing in education no longer relies on technology, but rather on a teacher's decision to go forward and implement these technologies in the classroom. The global goal should be to make knowledge available, accessible, and affordable for everyone on the planet.

Would you like to have a further discussion about integrating virtual reality in education or do you have practical questions about the virtual reality hardware? Feel free tous! contact