Can VR headsets help in classrooms?

Berlin (dpa) — Instead of going on language trips to other countries, why not order an espresso in an Italian café while sitting at home on the couch?

What sounds a bit like science fiction is possible with the help of virtual reality (VR). “In virtual environments, learners can actively act and communicate, regardless of location,” says educator Timo Ahlers, who researches VR at the University of Potsdam in Germany.

But what is VR? “It’s a computer-generated, purely digital environment in which you can move virtually in real time,” explains Ahlers.

This environment can be experienced through a head-mounted display, better known as a VR headset: “This means that my seeing and hearing are virtually linked to the virtual environment.”

Learn a language in VR

Simulating a visit to a café or a doctor, solving puzzles in a labyrinth, playing a basketball game or having a conversation around a virtual campfire: VR makes many things possible.

What makes it special is that language training can be combined with virtual visits to places. “With VR headsets you can put yourself in an extremely realistic situation,” says Ahlers. His team has researched game-based language learning in virtual environments.

One of the research results they found is that VR can be useful to improve communication skills when learning languages. “When you take self-study courses, you rarely get to speak and listen. Oral skills are currently being trained in VR applications,” explains Ahlers.

Exploring a virtual environment or solving tasks provide incentives to converse. Being able to start flexibly without being tied to specific course offerings or times is another advantage of virtual learning worlds.

More and more educational content is being conveyed through VR, according to Sabrina Basler from the German Adult Education Association. This includes virtual excursions, city tours or museum visits as well as professional training.

VR can also help with teaching complex work steps. Train drivers can learn to operate new trains in a virtual environment or medical students can simulate operations before either actually drives a train or operates on a real patient.

“In preparation for a real situation, it can be useful to have already mastered a task virtually,” says Ahlers. “I always see a benefit where VR is more effective or cheaper.”

Virtual excursions instead of real trips

In adult education courses, the aim is to use VR to visualise learning objects and make them tangible.

“Far-away learning or experience spaces can also be made accessible to people who, for social or age reasons, would not have regular access to these experiences, such as virtual excursions as a replacement for real trips,” Basler says.

VR can also be used in schools: For example, a journey through time to antiquity in history lessons, walking through the human body in biology or an expedition to the Earth’s core in geography.

However, this kind of learning “is not suitable for use by students under the age of 13 because their visual development is not yet complete,” Ahlers says.

The use of VR in the education sector is still rare, mainly due to high costs. “The apps are often still demos or smaller, very partial applications. There are hardly any very large learning applications because the development effort is currently still relatively high,” according to the VR expert.

Added to this is the cost of the equipment. You can currently get cheap headsets for around €300/$300, says Ahlers. There are also rental options and headsets without a display into which a smartphone is inserted. These can be had for around €100/$100 but don’t work so well, Ahlers says.

Future is unclear

So what is the future of VR in the education sector? “In terms of breadth, gaming is currently clearly ahead,” says Ahlers.

Despite the benefits, he does not see VR applications as an alternative to conventional learning methods: “I think the expectation that the virtual world will function as a mirror image of the real world is a little exaggerated.”

There is also still scepticism at adult education centres as to whether and to what extent VR will become established on a large scale.

“It is unclear as to whether VR can produce a genuine didactic benefit in practise or whether the wow effect of the technology will wear off quickly,” says Basler.