Treasure of Memory – 6 Wonderlands in 90 Minutes with Immersive VR Learning

Prelude

Yes, this is a story of immersive learning workshop we carried out in Oct 2017. However, what we want to share is not only about us but more about a boy – Seth, who participated in our workshop. A story of how he gained the memory of 6 wonderlands in 90 minutes, of how he showed his care and treasure of these memories. Yes, we witnessed, through Seth, the power of virtual reality based immersive learning!

Learning Objective

This workshop is designed to deliver education value related to two subjects – geography and technology.

Geography: the related syllabus goals from NSW Geography K-10 are:

GE2-1 / GE 3-1 / GE4-1/ GE5-1: “Locate and describes the diverse features and characteristics of a range of places and environments”

GE2-4 / GE3-4 / GE4-7 / GE5-7: “Acquires, processes and communicate geographical information using geographical tools for inquiry”

Technology: the goal is providing kids relevant “knowledge, understanding and appreciation of the impact of innovation and emerging technologies on the individual, society and environment”

Workshop Brief

Following the rules of inquiry based learning, we started the workshop with building linkages to students’ previous knowledge and experiences.

For example, we showed them pictures of earth and asked them what do they know about it.

Also, we designed activities to know how the kids usually acquire the information, knowledge, and experiences related to the subject.

Besides the overall method of inquiry based learning, we put emphasis on the following three aspects:

1. the various affordance and effectiveness of different learning media. For example, students carried out activities with not only virtual reality but also maps and world globe.

2. students’ social learning through collaboration and discussion. For example, students took challenges to identify places of interests together. They share and learn from each other’s VR story.

3. the unique affordance of virtual reality as a geographic tool. Specifically, we design activities and questions related to immersion, autonomy and powerful simulation.

Tools & Technologies

For the VR technology, we used, in this workshop, HTC Vive plus Google Earth VR as an innovative way to explore, experience different places of interests.

HTC Vive Room-scale VR System

Google Earth VR

Story of Seth

Here, we want to highlight Seth, who surprised me at the end of the workshop.

My first impression on Seth was hyper energetic. He was kicking a football with two other boys when we arrived the venue. You may even call him naughty since their little game did cause some troubles to others.

During the workshop, he had, like others, two VR sessions with his chosen places of interest, one is the Statue of Liberty and the other is Mount Everest. Other than that, I didn’t notice anything particular with him.

However, when the workshop finished, I noticed that kids normally ran out for snacks or playground. Seth, on the other hand, sitted quietly on a chair, concentrating on drawing something on a piece of A4 paper.

I was surprised thus approached him and asked what he was doing. “Drawing” he answered, without raising his eyes. The way he replied and the tone made me felt like he was almost in another world.

Realized he didn’t want to talk with me, I went back and kept packing the equipments. About ten minutes later, however, Seth came to me with the his finished work.

Seth showed me the A4 paper and explained everything vividly. His words reflected, I noticed, not only the places but also how he interacted with them as well as how he felt.

To me, it was like listening to his story of visiting a theme-park. The difference was that he had superpower in the experience. To me, it was apparently a description of MEMORY, something none of the previous media (e.g., text, image, video or combined) could activate during such a short workshop.

After our little talk, Seth walked back to his schoolbag, kneeled down. He carefully folded the A4 paper twice, and inserted it in a book. He did it very slowly and carefully, like holding something fragile, something easily breakable if he used more strength.

After putting his bag back, he stood up, looked around, found his football mates and joined them. Suddenly, those hype and energy returned to him …

Postlude

Famous educational theorist David Kolb once defined, in his influential article*, “Learning is the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience”.In today’s practice of education, knowledge is mainly “transferred”, not from situated, real-world or simulated experience, but from textbooks and abstracted concepts. We firmly believe that there can be more room for the natural joy of learning with the rising of immersive learning media accompanied by careful design and delivery.From Seth’s treasure of memory. We saw hope.

* Kolb, D.A., 2014. Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development. FT press.