Discipline: Science and Mathematics Education
Subcategory: Education
Session: 4
Frederick Brooks - Lawson State Community College
Co-Author(s): Dr. Calvin Briggs, Lawson State Community College, Birmingham, AL
Virtual reality technology has become a viable option for education because of the increase in affordability; hardware such as the Oculus Rift for $500 or the cost-efficient Google Cardboard for $15. The interest in virtual reality is also rising with the Gear VR selling 2.3 million units and the Oculus Rift selling 355,000 (Walsh, 2017). Already, it is reported that using VR in classrooms resulted in a 100% increase in student attention, a 30% increase in test scores, and 95% of students say VR improved their learning experience (Gajsek, 2017). There is a large array of ways in which virtual reality can and is currently being used: virtual trips to a vast array of different places, hands on experience with cell biology, conceptual design spaces for architects, or a virtual science laboratory for mistake-tolerant experimentation (Youngblut, 1998, pp. 17-19). There are many schools already incorporating virtual reality usage: Drury University in Springfield, MO; the Jackson School in Victoria, Australia; Silesian University of Technology in Silesia Poland; the University of Michigan; the University of California, Los Angeles; Penn State University in Pennsylvania; the University of British Columbia in Vancouver; and many more (Walsh, 2017). This study will explore and conceptualize additional ways in which virtual reality can be used in education, identifying which applications are relevant, and gain further understanding of how virtual reality effects students in the classroom.
Funder Acknowledgement(s): Dr. Calvin Briggs and Dr. Bruce Crawford
Faculty Advisor: Dr. Calvin Briggs, cbriggs@lawsonstate.edu
Role: This is more of a research proposal. I developed the poster and provided information through various literature readings.