Learning with virtual reality: an analysis of educational applications

The article examines the market for existing VR applications and sites. It describes the most popular and useful applications for different stages of education: primary, secondary and high school and university. The author looks at the advantages and possibilities of these applications, gives the links to download and try them. It also points on the important aspects to be considered when choosing the application for the lesson.

Keywords: virtual reality, augmented reality, new technologies, educations, primary school, secondary school, high school, university, applications.

Virtual reality, or VR, is a new technology that creates 3-dimentional artificial environments with the use of special headsets or goggles. These environments are similar to the real world and help to experience the things impossible in current physical conditions. Nowadays, VR is being widely implemented in educational purposes, so a plenty of applications and sites have been developed in order to provide the possibilities to teach and learn different subjects on different levels of schooling.

Main part of the study. In preschool and primary school age, the main activity is the game. Children learn by playing together or on their own. Thus, taking advantage of this psychological peculiarity, the following applications might be used:

1. Peronio. [1] It is an interactive pop-up book developed by Ovni Sttudios, which presents a holographic game-play experience, combining virtual and augmented realities. It requires only the headset, as the game is played by pointing to different objects with the laser-like pointer. In Peronio, children can experience different professions, like a mechanic, an engineer, a doctor etc. It is a child-friendly game, as it is colourful and engaging: for example, in a «Dentist» chapter children are the dentists to a dragon. It increases the awareness of different jobs and develops imagination.
2. Fixies VR. [2] This game developed by Immergity LLC is based on the famous educational cartoon. It has two genres: «hidden object», which develops attention and memory, and «runner», a quest, where the children understand the importance of accomplishing the tasks. It is suitable for both boys and girls and teaches them how to recognize images, colors and forms, develops the logic and attentiveness. The game is suitable even for younger children, as the age rank is 4+.
3. Find Toma. [3] One more game developed by Garpix LLC for the children older that 4. Hide-and-seek game is familiar to all the children around the world. In this game, the children have to find a cat in different locations. Find Toma might be used to develop a sense of direction and to learn prepositions of place in foreign language classes.

While the VR applications for younger learners look like games, there are many of them more educational ones to be used in secondary and high school.

1. Class VR platform [4] has a wide range of materials with the lesson plans provided on different subjects. It helps to spark the imagination of the learners, giving them the experiences and memories through visualisation. There are more than 1000 activities. For example, for on the art class, students may visit different galleries and famous buildings, look at various paintings and sculptures and discover the street art around the world. On biology lessons students can discover human anatomy, take a closer look on plants and experience natural environments exploring a selection of habitats and biomes across the globe. There are materials on for chemistry, drama, language, history, maths, geography and religious education as well. This kind of materials help visualise and understand even the most complex of educational subjects.
2. Google Earth VR [5] is available on HTC Vive and Oculus Rift headsets and helps to explore the world from the new perspectives. It gives an opportunity to visit different places around the world and browse the facts about these places with the headsets on.
3. 1943 Berlin Blitz by BBC [6] is a game based on the World War II events to be used on history lessons. Students may see the dangerous journey of a Lancaster bomber and learn about the war, armour and military planes.
4. Apollo 11 VR [7] might be used on engineering lessons to experience the historic event through the eyes of those who lived it. It is very realistic, because it uses the archive audio and video recreating the spacecraft and surroundings.
5. Hoover Dam Industrial VR [8] is a great tool to present the technological features of engineering. The students might be immersed into the construction of a dam seeing how every detail works.
6. Rapid Fire: A Brief History of Flight [9] is another application for engineering. Students may learn the construction of the planes, from the primitive to the modern ones like F22 Raptor.

Virtual reality may serve as an internship for medical students. [10] On such applications as NeuroExplorer [11], Anatomy Explorer 2020 [12], Sharacare VR [13], healthcare workers may be trained in a risk-free, practical and highly successful level.

Besides the applications, there are a lot of 360 ^o videos on YouTube. Mainly, they are field trips to the zoo, safari, space and other places. These videos give and immersive background to the lessons.

All above mentioned applications provide an opportunity to experience and live through the different events. This motivates students to learn, raises the interest in the topic and gives a context making a process of learning meaningful.

Conclusion. When choosing an application, teachers have to take into account some important aspects. First of all, the application used on the lesson must be appropriate for the age of the students. According to the statistics, 99 % of the VR applications are in English, thus, some of the vocabulary must be pre-taught for foreign students in order to provide a better understanding of the content. [14] Moreover, whether the majority of the virtual applications are free, some of them are not. The average price is about 10$. In addition, some VR applications require high-quality equipment, such as good VR headsets, a lot of store memory available on the device or hard drive and video card. In the future a more comprehensive case study should be conducted on how these VR applications from the market are accepted by teachers and students.

References:

1. Peronio Pop-Up Book. — Текст: электронный // App Store: [сайт]. — URL: 1. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/peronio-pop-up-book/id907612181 (дата обращения: 20.02.2022).
2. Fixies VR. — Текст: электронный // App Store: [сайт]. — URL: https://apps.apple.com/ru/app/fixies-vr/id1290819474?l=en (дата обращения: 20.02.2022).
3. Find Toma VR. — Текст: электронный // App Store: [сайт]. — URL: https://apps.apple.com/ru/app/find-toma-vr-game/id1177397258?l=en (дата обращения: 20.02.2022).
4. Virtual Reality for Schools. — Текст: электронный // CLASSVR: [сайт]. — URL: https://www.classvr.com/ (дата обращения: 20.02.2022).
5. Google Earth VR. — Текст: электронный // Google Earth VR: [сайт]. — URL: https://arvr.google.com/earth/ (дата обращения: 20.02.2022).
6. 1943 Berlin Blitz. — Текст: электронный // Oculus: [сайт]. — URL: https://www.oculus.com/experiences/rift/2178820058825941/?locale=ru_RU (дата обращения: 20.02.2022).
7. Apollo 11 VR HD. — Текст: электронный // Steam: [сайт]. — URL: https://store.steampowered.com/app/953840/Apollo_11_VR_HD/ (дата обращения: 20.02.2022).
8. Hoover Dam: Industrial VR. — Текст: электронный // Meta Quest: [сайт]. —URL: https://www.oculus.com/experiences/rift/1297777480332012/?locale=ru_RU (дата обращения: 20.02.2022).
9. Rapid Fire: A Brief History on FLight. — Текст: электронный // WITHIN: [сайт]. — URL: https://www.with.in/watch/rapid-fire-a-brief-history-of-flight (дата обращения: 20.02.2022).
10. Singh, R. P., Javaid, M., Kataria, R., Tyagi, M., Haleem, A., & Suman, R. (2020). Significant applications of virtual reality for COVID-19 pandemic. Diabetes and Metabolic Syndrome: Clinical Research and Reviews, 14(4), 661–664. https://doi.org/ 10.1016/j.dsx.2020.05.011
11. NeuroExplorer. — Текст: электронный // Meta Quest: [сайт]. — URL: https://www.oculus.com/experiences/rift/1697976126910722 (дата обращения: 20.02.2022).
12. Anatomy Explorer. — Текст: электронный // Meta Quest: [сайт]. — URL: https://www.oculus.com/experiences/rift/3878356485536748/?locale=ru_RU (дата обращения: 20.02.2022).
13. Sharecare YOU VR. — Текст: электронный // STEAM: [сайт]. — URL: https://store.steampowered.com/app/724590/Sharecare_YOU_VR/ (дата обращения: 20.02.2022).
14. Qiu, X. y., Chiu, C. K., Zhao, L. L., Sun, C. F., & Chen, S. j. (2021). Trends in VR/AR technology-supporting language learning from 2008 to 2019: A research perspective. In Interactive Learning Environments, https://doi.org/10.1080/10494820.2021.1874999