Immersive virtual reality (VR) has existed since the late twentieth century in some form or another, and it has often been coupled with advances in computer technology. Some enthusiasts even argue the concept predates the computer, with technology such as the nineteenth-century stereoscope serving as an analog comparison.

When most people think of VR, they think of wearable devices that allow users to enter simulated, computer-rendered environments and interact with them as if they were really in that environment. It’s a conceptualization that’s persisted in the popular consciousness and in its advancement as a technology.

In the early ‘90s, computer and video game companies tried their hands at creating wearable VR devices. Although many of these early attempts failed, the public’s interest never fully waned. Other VR-adjacent technologies sprung up in its place—and started entering the classroom.

In the past decade, non-immersive VR gained traction as an educational tool when university and then K-12 educators began to use desktop-run VR environments in their classrooms. These virtual reality environments had users navigating 3-D spaces through a computer, and the idea of immersive VR devices—which simulate moving around virtual spaces using goggles and other peripherals—was about to become less of a novelty.

Since 2012, major tech companies including Facebook-owned Oculus, Google, Samsung, HTC, and Microsoft have gone on to turn immersive VR headsets and accessories into semi-affordable consumer products.

As a result, the door has opened for companies and educators to begin experimenting with VR. In the past couple of years, many Texas educators have done just that, and they’re seeing the benefit.

How Teachers Use Virtual Reality

It was a lesson about the Antarctic in a second grade classroom that cemented VR’s benefits as an instructional tool for Elenisa Vasquez, digital learning facilitator for Laredo ISD. The students had just finished a lesson about the continent, where they learned new vocabulary about its ecosystem, when Vasquez rolled in with her mobile VR cart and loaded up a virtual field trip to Antarctica produced by Google Expeditions and National Geographic.

“The kids were naming animals like, ‘Oh, look! There’s an emperor penguin,’ and they began using terms from the textbook to describe the scene,” Vasquez says. “Through VR, we’re giving kids authentic context to use their new vocabulary. They were able to describe what they were seeing more clearly.”

More than a year ago, Vasquez introduced immersive VR hardware and software to her district during a pilot program that provided two Laredo ISD campuses with kits made up of Android cell phones and View-Master headsets. Vasquez worked with teachers to integrate VR experiences into their lessons.

“We found that it’s actually a very natural connection to the learning experience,” Vasquez says, adding that her district saw the pilot program as a success worthy of further exploration. “It amplifies it and takes it to the next level, which is something you couldn’t quite get with just text or video alone.”

Laredo ISD decided to expand the program. The district purchased VR kits made and distributed by California company RobotLAB. The kits include anywhere from 10 to 30 mobile VR devices and a teacher tablet, among other items, for every elementary school in the district—that’s 20 elementary schools with their own VR kits.

“I enjoy bringing in new technology into my classroom,” says Lorena Acosta, a fifth grade teacher at Michael S. Ryan Elementary who has used the RobotLAB VR kits to incorporate virtual field trips into her own lesson plans. “VR gives the teacher the opportunity to travel to many places with their students to explore countless classrooms. Technology, as I see it, has taken over the world, and it is our responsibility [as educators] to advance with it.”

In Sabine Elementary in Kilgore, nearly 500 miles from Laredo, fourth grade teacher Laura Stripland has also begun incorporating VR into her lessons. In 2018, Stripland was awarded a grant by the Sabine Education Foundation for an HTC Vive VR system, a gaming laptop, and VR backpack. The single portable system is used by educators across Sabine ISD.

“We use our portable system with kindergarten through 12th grade,” explains Stripland, who has also presented on the topic of VR use in classrooms at conferences and professional development workshops. “Our students have loved being immersed in the various VR experiences and have enjoyed learning through VR.”

Melissa P. Laurel, a second grade teacher at H. Ligarde Elementary in Laredo, believes a VR kit might be especially interesting to low-income students who might not otherwise travel to faraway places.

“Many of our students are low-income and don’t have any life experiences beyond their neighborhoods,” she says. (Approximately 30 percent of Laredo’s population is below the poverty line, according to the most recent census.)

“These technologies give them the ability to visit and experience places and things they might never be able to in real life. VR shows them how much more there is out in our world and beyond. They can extensively increase their background knowledge, which is crucial to their success.”

Elad Inbar, CEO of RobotLAB, also lists this as one of the major benefits of VR. According to Inbar, VR and other emerging technology can help make abstract concepts such as geometry, outer space, and the workings of the inner body tangible by allowing students to view these things in 360 degrees.

“VR can take whole classes to places that weren’t possible before, from Machu Pichu in Peru to a NASA probe on its way to Jupiter and all the way into our blood vessels,” Inbar says. “There’s no other technology that can make that happen.”

Barriers to Entry

Educators such as Vasquez, Acosta, and Stripland have generally merged VR into their lessons by slotting in preexisting materials provided by Google Expeditions or any number of professionally created VR software programs. These teachers are using their expertise in order to create new curricula with VR, which can be a challenging task. These challenges can in turn create a barrier to VR becoming a widespread instructional tool, according to Joan Hughes, PhD, an associate professor with the Learning Technologies Program in the University of Texas (UT) College of Education.

“One of the challenges with VR is that it’s not easily adaptable,” she says. “It’s dependent on the expertise of whoever is creating and using the content and how well it’s matched with the standards or curricular needs teachers have identified.”

Hughes studies how teachers and students integrate new and emerging technologies in the classroom and has published extensively on the subject. She has also specifically researched VR integration in classrooms alongside UT graduate students Yin Hong Cheah and Hsiao-Ping Hsu, PhD. She says one of the challenges educators face is being unable to directly create VR content to suit their specific needs and standards.

Hughes and her students found tech companies possess the resources to create VR spaces that many school districts do not, even the ones that might have the necessary expertise, which is why most of the adoption of VR in education spaces tends to be in higher education.

“The content from companies might be well-produced and easily available, but no matter what: It must match a pre-K-12 curricular need,” Hughes says. “If you don’t have the expertise to take VR that exists and tweak it—which is not easily done or even technically allowed—it has to almost magically match a teacher’s needs.”

But other barriers beyond the needs of the teacher exist that must be considered before school districts as a whole move toward buying VR kits. For one, it’s recommended districts review both the age recommendations and manufacturer’s guidelines before buying.

“Although we believe that VR may help students at different levels, I would particularly pay attention to the VR applications in elementary school classrooms because of potential health risks,” Hughes explains. “The potential health impacts are really unknown, but past studies did find that some students have balance problems immediately after use—though it was not long-lived.”

In 2018, researchers at the University of Newcastle in Australia published an extensive report titled “Immersive Virtual Reality, Children and School Education: A Literature Review for Teachers” for the Digital Identity, Curation, and Education Report Series. One major risk, found highlighted in manufacturers’ guidelines, was a type of motion sickness called “cybersickness,” which includes symptoms such as nausea, disorientation, headaches, and eye strain.

The report recommended students be limited to 15 minutes of VR time per three hours in order to mitigate any potential side effects. It also suggested people stay up-to-date on research as it comes out in order to better understand the long-term effects of VR. Schools should consider the investment per the learning outcomes, says Hughes.

Cost is another factor worth considering. An individual VR device might range in cost from the average price of a decent smartphone plus a plastic or cardboard viewer (a pre-built Google Cardboard viewer costs between $6–$15; other brands cost less or more) to a few hundred dollars for devices such as the Oculus Rift. Standardized kits designed specifically for classrooms are another matter.

The standard RobotLAB VR classroom kit is approximately $3,280 for 10 devices and other peripherals. The least expensive consumer Google Expeditions Kits—which include 10 student devices, a router, a charging case or cart, and virtual reality viewers—is $3,800 as of this writing. Depending on a school district’s budget, this might be a deal breaker.

When asked about cost, RobotLAB’s CEO said RobotLAB kits can last up to three years and cover 400–500 students per school, and that by those estimates: “This comes out to about $2 per student per year.”

Pitfalls to Avoid

Nearly every educator ATPE’s interviewed about VR has noted this technology and others—while exciting—should not be considered a silver bullet. It should not be used in isolation and should be carefully considered before being employed.

“I would suggest schools think carefully about what subjects need VR before buying,” says Hughes. “They need to identify the subject and topical areas that have need for VR as an instruction solution.”

Vasquez agrees: “With any tech integration, you want to make sure it’s there to bolster the lesson. Think, ‘Why are we as educators using this?’ Think about your process, your vision, and plan accordingly.”

For Acosta, learning how to work through the technology leads to a rewarding outcome. “Once you get your students engaged and wanting to learn, then you get to sit back and watch them learn.”

“Don’t see VR as ‘just something else’ that we [as teachers] have to do,” Laurel adds. “See it as something that enhances the curriculum and gains the students’ interest to a point where they go off beyond the scope of the lesson.”

Next Phase

In June, Hughes attended the 2019 International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) conference in Philadelphia, where out of more than 1,800 sessions, she says 47 related to VR in some way, and many presentations focused on the creation side of things.

Additionally, educators have already begun to focus on creating their own content within VR spaces. One solution that stuck out to Hughes is the work some educators are doing using the Google Tour Creator, which allows users to create immersive, 360-degree tours.

This ability could help break down the challenge of finding content that relates to teachers’ lessons by giving teachers and students the opportunity to create immersive VR content themselves.

Vasquez and Laredo ISD have also seen the need to create their own content. They have plans in the works to help teachers and students develop their own tours and assignments.

“Students could create environments that tie together climate information, geographic information, and so on into an interactive tour,” Vasquez says. “Students would write their own scripts explaining the environment and that might help them better retain the vocabulary and information.”

Hughes, for her part, is interested to see how VR applications evolve in pre-K-12 school classrooms and for more research to accompany those evolutions. Already, she said, there have been some interesting adaptations of VR in the classroom: from VR field trips to VR explorations of atoms and molecules to giving students the chance to step into the daily lives of people throughout history.

In 2017, Hughes wrote an op-ed for The Dallas Morning News titled “Is Classroom Technology Good for Learning or Wasting Time?” The article dealt primarily with tablet technology, but one line she wrote resonates with VR.

“Learning with technology becomes more meaningful and engaging when students tackle intellectually challenging, complex content problems that have roots in their interests or lives.”

If immersive VR has the potential to place students into shoes far different than their own, allow them to stand in spaces far from home, and experience things they might have only dreamed about, then it’s likely that eventually every subject of study can benefit from VR.

Technology, after all, evolves quickly, and our classrooms can evolve just as quickly.