Menu
Kimberly Hieftje, PhD, Director of the play4REAL Lab at Yale University School of Medicine wrote a guest blog post about the use of VR in the classroom on the Revolutionary Learning blog. In this post she explores the feasibility of this technology in a school context by analyzing a project we did with them: Invite Only VR.
Dr. Hieftje’s guest blog post on the Revolutionary Learing website.
Invite Only VR is a virtual reality intervention that raises awareness about the dangers of vaping and the use of e-cigarettes by teens. Dr. Hieftje conducted a study using this game by measuring its impact on a test group of 60 teens.
By the end of the study, Dr. Hieftje is still cautious about using VR in schools today. She noticed that teachers were not always very eager to use a headset in the classroom because they fear the complexity of the setup. Additionally, the Oculus Go headsets used in the study tended to lose battery power relatively fast. Meanwhile, teens tended to tease each other while a classmate was immersed in VR.
A screenshot taken of the Invite Only VR intervention, built by PreviewLabs for Play4REAL Lab.
The initial study will be followed up by a larger randomized controlled trial on 300 8th grade students in three schools in Connecticut. For this, play4REAL Lab is discussing the possibilities of integrating VR in classrooms with middle school administration and faculty.
She concludes that she is cautiously optimistic about the prospect of VR in the classroom but will be keeping a close eye on the adaptation of the technology by middle schools in the upcoming trials.
Read the full guest post on the Revolutionary Learning website.