insights into immersive virtual reality in real classrooms
Interested in students as virtual reality content creators? Check out this podcast from the VR School Study lead researcher A/Prof Erica Southgate. In the podcast, Erica discusses: selecting ‘sandbox’ applications that allow students to create virtual worlds without needing to code; pedagogical facilitation and curriculum development using this new media; and the evidence base for learning.
The VR School Study has been a two year journey in school-university collaboration. Throughout this time there have been many moments of frustration but also of an excitement that can only be sparked by collective intellectual endeavour. Among students there has also been frustration when the technology fails but these times are in contrast to what can only be be described as moments of pure learning joy.
Sadly, joy is not something that is spoken about enough in relation to schooling, and especially in regard to high school science classes. The joy of discovery is, of course, a central feature of the discipline of science, especially after the trials and tribulations of long periods of hard thought and experimentation. This quote from a lecture published in the journal Science back in 1936 captures the delight of scientific inquiry:
“While it is true that scientific men (sic) must make an impersonal study of the laws of Nature, there is ample evidence from historical records of the joy they have felt on achieving their goal. Newton, it was said, was so agitated when his work on the law of gravitation approached completion that he had to beg a friend to complete his calculation. …Harvey (the first to describe how the heart pumps blood around the body) said that ‘the pains of discovery are amply compensated by the joys of discovery.’ …The joy of the creative intellect, whether in art, literature or science, is one of the most exalted human emotions.”
How often do students experience the joy of scientific inquiry in high school science classrooms? This is a question worth asking because learning through discovery should be serious fun. How have technologies, across the ages, been instrumental in producing feelings of curiosity, wonder, excitement and that ‘exalted’ human emotion, joy? These emotions are intrinsic to the ‘creative intellect’ and they lay at the very heart of ideas in broader educational discourses about student engagement, school climate and motivation for learning.
During the VR School Study there have been moments of pure joy. As part of a unit of work in science, Year 9 students (14-15 years old) were asked to research an organ of the body, model and label it in desktop PC Minecraft Win 10 or Pocket Edition on mobile devices, and then import it into Win 10 Minecraft VR run on networked Oculus Rifts. There, they continued collaboratively building and refining the model in preparation for presenting what they had learnt about that body part to an audience.
Some examples of the pure joy of learning stand out. For instance, the first time a group of girls imported the levitating eyeball they had built in desktop computer Minecraft into Minecraft VR, there were squeals of excitement, raucous laughter, and a rapid flow of ideas about how to refine the model. They flew under and around the eyeball which was as large as a house and then into its interior via the eye’s lens. When they met inside the eye, and started lighting it up with torches, the amazement of the experience was palpable. A screenshot of the eyeball is below and the scale of it is discernible by the box on the ground which represents 1m x 1m. The square gap on the top of the eyeball was used by the girls who would fly high and then dive into it.
A group of boys had built an eyeball with an optical nerve attached to it which the player could run through until they reached the internal part of the eye. They then began to make a rollercoaster for others to tour the eye with plans for it to extend through the optical nerve. The sheer fun of running up and through a nerve while discussing the function of it was wonderful to observe.
One group of girls had built an artery and they had labelled the various layers of the artery wall after researching the correct biological terms. As they refined their model in VR, the girls excitedly discussed how they would take peers on a tour of it, travelling through the artery ‘like a platelet in the bloodstream.’ Below is a screenshot of a side view of the artery with a pig in front of it and below this is a screenshot of a cross-sectional view of the artery with the key identifying its part.
A group of boys took great care in building a spinal column with nerve endings, spinal fluid (or spinal juice as one fellow called it) attached to a detailed brain in cross-section. In VR, the structure was as high as a skyscraper and flying up and around it as they commentated on what work was still required was an astounding experience. They had provided, at ground level, an informative key to parts of the model. To hear students talk authoritatively and with great energy about how they went about selecting materials to try to accurately reflect the biological components of the spine, nerves and brain, while simultaneously working to improve the representation, provided a glimpse into the power of virtual reality for learning. Below is a screenshot looking up at the spinal cord with nerves and the brain; the floating white cubes are lanterns to illuminate it at night, although one boy did remark they might be thought of as electrical impulses emitting from the brain. The feature image for this blog post is a screenshot looking down at the brain at night.
While the study is not all smooth sailing, with the technological hitches demotivating some students, it has yielded insights into how collaborative inquiry using immersive VR can promote deep, authentic learning. The discovery component is twofold. Firstly there is a visceral discovery in how much more wondrous 3D models and cross-sections can look and feel in a truly immersive environment; the uniquely embodied and affective qualities of an experience that it is all around you compared with looking at or generating something on a computer screen. Secondly, there is discovery in researching and applying what is often fairly dry theoretical scientific knowledge in a process of collective creative intellect stemming from collaborative experimentation with the learning affordances of VR such as manipulation of size or unique navigation techniques (flying or diving).
The study provides a tantalizing glimpse into the (near) future of immersive education.
Keeping it real – A/Prof Erica Southgate (who is still recovering from flying around that skyscraper of a brain!)
As educators it’s always good to reflect on our top learning experiences, and so here are my top 5 VR School moments to date.
1. When the tech works it’s magic
It’s no easy feat getting the tech to work for this project. It includes networking the Oculus Rifts so that students can collaborate in Minecraft VR and deploying Window 10 version of Minecraft to desktop and laptop computers or Pocket Edition Minecraft to tablets and diverse BYOD mobile devices. The school system has a block on game stores and a work-around was needed. And, then there is the issue of glitches like inexplicable loss of tracking, program crashes or the need to reset Guardian systems that have shifted within the tight space of the VR room. Every time we get through lesson without too many glitches we breathe a sigh of relief.
2. Students are smiling, laughing, dancing and swimming with dolphins in VR
Watching the joy of students in immersive virtual reality is worth the gargantuan effort to address the technical issues. Students in immersive VR are animated as they explore, create, work together and sensation seek (by flying over landscapes or swimming with dolphins). There is spontaneous dancing and singing too. Watching students have serious fun in the science classroom is just brilliant.
3. Students recognise if they are distracted and refocus back on the learning task
Students remark that all the cool things to do in immersive VR can distract them from getting on with the learning task; however, most do direct themselves and each other back to learning and actively negotiate roles and actions to achieve their goal. Understanding this dynamic is important for future educational applications of the technology.
4. Students collaborate to create new ways to demonstrate their understanding of the topic
Students generally like the challenge of interpreting the learning task to demonstrate their understanding of the topic in new and creative ways; in this case the task is building biological models and delivering unique and fun presentation modes such as tour experiences. It isn’t possible to predict how students will creatively use the affordances of immersive VR (like manipulation of scale or embodied spatial navigation), but the end results are often positively surprising (like taking the teacher on a flying tour of an enormous plant cross-section or building a hollow root system that can be traversed by other learners).
5. Some girls start asking questions about technology careers
An unexpected consequence of putting the technology into classrooms is that it has prompted girls express interest in the uses and future of the technology and possible careers in the area. Using immersive technologies for learning may spark career conversations about tech jobs with girls and other groups who are under-represented in the industry. This is worth thinking about.
Over and out for now (I am off to swim with those virtual dolphins) – A/Prof Erica Southgate
Feature image: Screenshot of the dolphins in Minecraft.
As we move into Phase 2 of the VR School Study, the team thought that we would give you a quick video update on what we have learnt so far and what we hope to achieve over the next few months. Here is Associate Professor Erica Southgate with the low down!
And how cool is the featured picture (top). It is a student work sample from Phase 1 of the study. On the left is a bluebell that the student created in Minecraft VR and on the right is how he labelled the cross-section of the flower by drawing on his research on the different parts and functions of a plant. He took Erica on an amazing guided tour of his creation where they both flew around the flower (like bees) while he explained the meaning of the labelled cross-section to her. It was a thoroughly researched scientific experience and great fun to boot!
This is the second article we have published from phase 1 of the VR School Study. This article reviews the literature on immersive virtual reality and children, and examines ethics and safety, technical issues, and the role of play when learning in highly immersive virtual reality. It is co-authored with teachers from Callaghan College, Newcastle, Australia.
To cite this article in APA:
Southgate, E., Buchanan, R., Cividino, C., Saxby, S., Eather, G., Smith, S.P., Bergin, C., Kilham., Summerville, D. & Scevak, J. (2018). What teachers should know about highly immersive virtual reality: Insights from the VR School Study. Scan, 37(4). Retrieved https://education.nsw.gov.au/teaching-and-learning/professional-learning/scan/past-issues/vol-37/research-highly-immersive-virtual-reality
Unless you’ve tried it, it’s hard to imagine what’s it’s actually like being in Minecraft VR in an embodied way instead of playing it on a screen.
The VR School Project is collecting all kinds of data including video and screen capture of student activity in Minecraft VR. Every so often we will post video or screen capture (where students cannot be identified) as a little window into student activity in Minecraft VR.
The video presented below is a first-person perspective from a boy who is selecting materials before going to join his friends to continue building their virtual reality cafe, which was the learning task. You can hear dialogue from the boys, the teacher and the researcher. Check out his cool dog-headed avatar!
What do high school students say about using immersive virtual reality (VR) for learning? Student reflections from the VR School Project provide unique insights into the educational potential and problems of using immersive VR in real classrooms.
‘VR is really cool because different types of learners are able to effectively absorb the information they need to be taught. It’s also fun, and has a reputation for being fun.’
Fifty four students aged 13-15 years participated in phase 1 of the research. As the quote above indicates, the majority students were excited to be given the opportunity to use Minecraft with the Oculus Rift to do their science or ICT lessons. Some talked about the experience as being ‘FUN, FUN, FUN’, saying they ‘would recommend it to anyone.’
Other students thought that immersive VR had the potential to transform learning in the classroom:
‘I personally think learning with Virtual Reality will change students perspective of learning in a majorly good way as it gives the student a whole new way to learn and interact with the stuff they are learning.’
Some were more equivocal, observing that ‘Although it (VR) removes distractions, it also adds them’ and it ‘was easier to get distracted by VR (version of Minecraft) than computer (version)’. The distraction factor may be a result of the novelty of the experience, however it is worth investigating further how the intensity of the experience — the sense of presence and freedom of agency (autonomy of navigation, manipulation and creativity) which Minecraft VR allows — may interfere with on-task behaviour.
A few students also mentioned cybersickness as a ‘negative’:
‘Our virtual reality tasks are entertaining and more engaging than any other normal science class, although while engaging in this task I have motion sickness which causes me to finish earlier than I normally would. There aren’t really any downsides apart from motion sickness.’
The student perspective from Phase 1 of the VR School project has yielded several ‘leads’ to be explored during phase 2 of the study which will be conducted in the first half of 2018. Harnessing student enthusiasm for immersive VR for increased on-task learning is vital if the technology is to enhance education.
Furthermore, as part of the project we screened for potential susceptibility to cybersickness and educated students about the condition, actively checking on their well-being while they were in VR. Students themselves exhibited good awareness of cybersickness and appeared to monitor how they were feeling during the VR experience, with most opting to get out at the first signs of discomfort. While there were a very few cases of cybersickness witnessed by the team, we will more closely examine the phenomenon from the student perspective during phase 2 of the project.
Associate Professor Erica Southgate on behalf of the awesomeness which is VR School team.
Photo: m.i.m.i ‘Shout!’ https://flic.kr/p/aCcip5
Fully immersive VR is a truly embodied experience. You move and interact with virtual objects and characters and, if the virtual environment is networked, with other players. It’s not like watching a movie, it’s like being in it and you can make things happen. This feeling of ‘being there’ in the virtual world is called presence or, when you are with others, social presence.
Immersive VR systems (Oculus Rift or HTC Vive) are designed so that the user is ‘protected’ or ‘contained’ by a virtual Guardian or Chaperone system. These systems consist of a 3D grid cage which pops up when the user strays beyond the safe, object free area that they have set up when configuring the equipment (see the screenshot below for Oculus Rift). Guardian systems temporarily break the sense of immersive presence by providing a visual cue that the user needs to move back into the safe zone.
During phase 1 of the VR School Project, we observed that students moved in very different ways especially in Minecraft VR where there is a great deal of autonomy in the open world game.
Some students moved very little, favoring small hand gestures and head movements and minor body rotations. Others rotated a lot but within a fairly restricted footprint but moved their heads, hands and arms more freely. There were also students who were very kinetic; they danced, boxed, galloped on the spot on virtual horses, waved their arms around, crouched down, kicked and repeatedly rotated, often getting the tether (which attaches the headset to the laptop) wrapped around their bodies.
All students in VR needed supervision, even the less active movers. In the VR School project, either the researcher or another students acted as a ‘spotter’. The spotter’s role was to make sure that the students in VR did not collide with objects or student spectators. This role was necessary because the engineered solution to safety, in this case the Guardian system, was sometimes ‘ignored’ by students. I have put the word ‘ignored’ in quote marks because it did not appear that students consciously put themselves at risk of bumping into objects. Rather, some students appeared to be so immersed that they automatically continued their actions outside of the safe area and seemed surprised when the spotter told them they were too close to objects and needed reorientation.
Furthermore, it appeared that the intensity of immersive VR could occasionally trigger a flight or fright response. For example, on one occasion when using the survival mode of Minecraft VR, a student was violently startled when spiders began to approach her. She began to crab-walk sideways at speed and the researcher had to speak loudly to her and place a hand on her shoulder to stop her running off.
There is certainly much more research that needs to be done on the adequacy of Guardian systems in breaking intense feelings of presence in VR, especially for those who are new to the experience but also in relation to startle responses. Some research suggests that young people can become so immersed in virtual and augmented reality environments that they enact unsafe behaviour due to a lack of awareness.
In most cases the Guardian system combined with the physical sensation of being tethered broke the feeling of presence enough so that student regulated their own safety in VR. The current version of the Oculus Rift is tethered, however the new Oculus Go is not. There are certainly safety issue to be explored with untethered design and practical and duty of care issues regarding the need for constant supervision of students who are in immersive VR. Much more public discussion regarding these issues is required.
Associate Professor Erica Southgate
VR School 