My VR Teaching Experience
VR (Virtual Reality) was still a fancy name in 2015, especially in K-12 school settings. When I had a chance to use Oculus Rift to teach scientific knowledge in my class, I felt excited and lucky. The first taste of this new staff was an open course to show the availabilities of using VR in everyday instructions. Many observers had limited knowledge about VR, as well as most of my students. So, I used some time to introduce the background of the theory and functions of the Oculus Rift in the beginning. Then, I led all the participants to try some easy softwares to familiarize themselves with the equipment.
The first open course received a few positive feedback, meanwhile some concerns about the reality of using VR in daily instructions had also been raised, and soon there came the second one, Voyage in Human Body.
I invited the learners, including students and teachers to use their recent learnings in my biology class to do free exploration using Oculus Rift, then explain the phenomena they experienced. Finish the handout by themselves to reach the instructional objectives. The learners were fascinated by both the hardware and software. Some students who are short of learning passion even would like to try and ask more questions about human body structure and functions than usual. VR had the potential to diliver individual instructions.
After the two open courses. I designed and recorded some VR programs. One of them was The Flowers in Beihai Park. If you have VR glasses, you can try it.
There is a lot of potential hidden in instruction with using VR. More professional research and practical reflections need to be done in this area.
References:
- http://tech.cnr.cn/techit/20160606/t20160606_522327925.shtml
- https://tech.huanqiu.com/gallery/9CaKrnQhtDT
- https://item.btime.com/378v4kal4ou909pqk8lcp1rgvho