Kiwi kids are spending their school day roaming the streets of New York, visiting Hillary’s Hut in Antarctica or taking a dive in one of New Zealand’s marine reserves - all without leaving the classroom.
As virtual reality technology becomes more accessible, schools are starting to dabble in how it can be used to immerse students in the topics they are learning about, be it in science, history, geography or technology.
Whangaparāoa College, on Auckland’s Hibiscus Coast, decided to invest heavily in technology and started using VR in the classroom about 18 months ago.
Already students’ lessons are coming alive as students use the technology to walk through their designs, see electric circuits in action and explore the countries they are learning about in geography.
Principal Steve McCracken said the school hired an e-learning coordinator last year to work with teachers on integrating virtual reality, augmented reality and artificial intelligence into their lessons, and now had more than 70 VR units for students to use.
He said teachers were willing to upskill and change their methods because they could see the value in using VR to make content relevant and memorable.
“The days of the old chalk and talk and whiteboards and textbooks and PowerPoint slideshows are long gone. Your kids want to experience, and to feel it, and see it in action,” he said.
“We’re only 18 months in. However, the outcomes that we’ve seen from learners is that they’re more engaged in learning, they’re more connected to their learning and, hopefully, the results can show that they’re actually learning better and deeper than what they were previously.”
McCracken said content creation would eventually become more of a focus but design and visual communications students had already used the technology to design an airport for the Hibiscus Coast and virtually walk through it. Others were creating content for the VR devices as a hobby after school.
He said it had already been a game-changer for students who had gone into the workforce and taught their employers how to use the technology in their industries.
The challenges included ensuring all students had equal opportunities to use the equipment, encouraging teachers to change their way of teaching and the cost of buying the technology, McCracken said.
For nearby Orewa College, it was the cost of the equipment that was limiting the use of VR.
Deputy principal in charge of learning and IT Richard Wells said the school had two units students could use for projects.
One student designed a 3D atom for a science project, an architecture class was able to use VR to walk through buildings they had designed and the Year 8 students were using VR for geography, team building and communication.
Wells said the limitation of the technology was that it essentially provided a one-person experience unless a school could afford to buy enough units for a whole class to use at the same time.
“I would argue, in schools, it is great as an inspirational tool to be able to offer to individual students setting up some sort of project with it but not as a general school classroom resource.”
There was a large industry centred on content creation for games and VR so it was worthwhile having sets for students who aspired to get into that field of work, he said.
Pre-Covid, a group of Pakuranga College students used the school device to develop a tobogganing game for VR which they sold on the STEAM gaming platform. They also set up a company to handle the income and expenditure.
The school was building towards VR becoming a core part of its digital technology teaching because it was thought to be a platform that would grow over the coming years.
But the programme was put on ice during Covid because it wasn’t “sensible” to be sharing the single headset the school had been able to afford during a pandemic, associate principal Billy Merchant said.
They had recently fired up the programme again with a group of “hobby” students starting to explore possibilities.
While schools were divided on the usefulness of VR for day-to-day use, other organisations were bringing the experience to students.
Since 2019, the Sir Peter Blake Trust has been running a VR programme in schools that lets students explore different parts of New Zealand’s underwater environment.
Alice Ward-Allen, Blake NZ head of programmes - discovery, said the roadshow had allowed 100,000 students from around the country to compare the state of the ocean at Goat Island Marine Reserve or the Poor Knights with an overfished part of the Hauraki Gulf or the pollution under the Leigh Wharf.
“One of the main reasons it was set up was because there’s a level of ocean blindness. The ocean always looks beautiful from the surface, but not many people actually get to go underneath by snorkelling or diving,” she said.
Short VR segments, interspersed with group discussions, made the experience more memorable and engaging for students, she said.
“We get lots of kids forgetting and feeling like they’re swimming in the ocean doing freestyle in the classroom. It’s got that fully immersive experience.”
A study of the effectiveness of the programme concluded: “VR can be a valuable learning tool to offer students learning opportunities they would otherwise not have access to”.
However, the researchers also said it was important to foster social interaction among students and encourage them to discuss what was being seen.
The Antarctic Heritage Trust offered a similar experience for school students with a virtual reality field trip to Sir Edmund Hillary’s Hut on the icy continent to learn about New Zealand’s first Antarctic expedition.
Other schools, particularly those in rural areas, were making the most of a new VR driving simulator called CoDriVR to help students with their learner’s licence practise driving on the road in a safe environment.
“Wow. Look at those wind turbines.”
Looking up at the roof and turning in full circles, Year 7 students at Whangaparāoa College seemed to forget they were in the school library as they were immersed in a virtual world of circuits and energy.
The class were getting their first taste of VR as part of their focus on electricity.
Small groups filed through for their turn seeing solar and wind power production as well as electrical circuits in the virtual world, before getting a chance to put circuits together themselves at another station set up in the library.
“It was strange. I felt like I was there but wasn’t at the same time,” Bella Dryland, 11, said.
“It makes it a bit more memorable because I haven’t done this sort of stuff before.”
Classmate Ava Gray, 12, agreed the new technology helped cement the learning in her mind.
“It’s more realistic and it gives you a real version of what you are learning,” she said.
That’s exactly what teacher Kim Winslow was hoping for when she decided to give VR a go in class for the first time.
“It definitely increases the engagement,” she said.
“They love technology so it’s just hooking them in and engaging them in the concepts. Then what I’m trying to do is get them off the VR and coming over to a real electrical circuit and trying to apply that enthusiasm and knowledge and excitement into the practical.”
The school’s e-learning co-ordinator Sarah Laycock has been helping teachers use VR in classes since the start of term 3 and has already seen the benefits for students.
“It ignites their curiosity. They are really looking and being a bit more curious. Rather than content just arriving in front of them, they’ve got to go out and seek and find different things and have a look around. It’s so immersive. It’s almost a physical kind of experience when they are in there.”
Amy Wiggins is an Auckland-based reporter who covers education. She joined the Herald in 2017 and has worked as a journalist for 12 years.
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