When I first stepped onto the field of Instructional Design, my imagination quickly took to the application of VR technology toward education. And now, with Coronavirus keeping kids at home and away from classrooms, there seems no better urgency than now to put VR on the fast track for distance learning.
My first experience with VR was 6 years ago as a public school teacher. It was during a field trip with my former students to the National Science Museum in Daejeon, South Korea where I got to try one of the first iterations of the Oculus Rift. The demo put me into an owl’s eye view while soaring through a dense forest. At the time, the image quality was nothing to write home about. But the immersion and sensation of being in another world were too much for me to not obsess about for some years. Fast forward now and I have my own Oculus Quest and the improvements are drastic. This device no doubt changes gaming completely. Could it do the same for education?
The company that I previously worked for, Chungdahm, prided itself as being one of the first pioneers in applying eLearning to the classroom. Just recently, I came across their demo video on how virtual reality will be rolled into their curriculum design.
I especially like the idea that it can connect students digitally while also encouraging kinetic learning. This video got me thinking about rapid eLearning tools and how they can apply 360-degree imagery into interactive learning modules. So far, Adobe Captivate seems to have an edge in this direction. And to top it off, you don’t need a virtual reality headset for a 3D experience as the feature can be activated through a web browser. It’s not as immersive as using an Oculus device, but it’s still a huge advancement. I decided to fire up Captivate and give it a try. Here’s what I cooked up.