Dive Brief:
- As virtual reality technology becomes more widespread and affordable — and quality educational content becomes more readily available — schools have reason to be reflective about the tech's classroom value.
- Converge reports there are financial and logistical challenges to using VR in the classroom, and some students get motion sickness from the experience, but good virtual reality content can give students opportunities to see distant places or travel back in time to enhance lessons.
- Students in Boston have used virtual reality to collaborate with students in Australia, and students in Texas who can’t swim have visited the Great Barrier Reef, but without proper training, it’s easier for teachers to use VR as a fun detour rather than a continuation of class content.
Dive Insight:
Google Cardboard now offers anyone with a smartphone and a $7 cardboard headset access to virtual reality. And low cost or even free virtual reality footage is widely available. Oculus Rift is a more expensive, and high tech, headset produced by Oculus VR. Other companies, including HTC Vive, Open Source VR and Samsung have similarly high-tech options, but Converge reports they cost as much as $1,000. Some high school students may end up getting VR headsets from prospective colleges offering campus tours to accepted students.
Augmented reality provides another option for teachers. Pokémon Go has fostered a worldwide craze using the model, overlaying a digital world on the real one. But teachers can incorporate augmented reality into lesson plans by building on students’ realities even if they have no tech.
