Virtual reality is coming. And, it’s coming quicker than most of us realize. Even in education, virtual reality is finding its way into the classroom and offering students the chance to explore learning with a technology that’s unlike anything else. With its immersive capabilities and incredibly vivid graphics, VR is poised to disrupt education in a way that’s both monumental and equally beneficial to students. Here are five VR viewers teachers can snag to keep up with the times.
VR One
So, there are high-end virtual reality viewers and there are some that are less complex. While there are plenty of options for unlocking amazing immersive experiences, those might be best saved for students who are a little bit older. In the early grades, however, children can still benefit from learning with virtual reality in the same ways as older students. It’s just that the capabilities of the viewers they should be using are not quite as impressive as some of the VR giants. Take the VR One, for example. It looks cool. It’s got a sleek design and it’s not too bulky to fit on the faces of younger students. Plus, it’s still plenty capable of transporting students to faraway worlds.
Whether students in K-2 are actually learning about them or not, they’re still plenty familiar with faraway places like the pyramids, ancient cities, and even thriving modern metropolises. The VR One is more than capable of transporting them to any of these environments without the need for any high-tech gear or time-consuming installations. To work with the VR One, all students need is a compatible smartphone and any VR-compatible apps that would unlock hidden features they would never be able to understand when learning with a textbook. This tool is a valuable addition to early education classrooms since it does a lot with a little and exposes children to virtual reality without demanding they know how to control the apps and the device or download a bunch of extras that could turn out to be too complicated.
With the VR One, curious kids can create an incredibly vivid window into the world of virtual reality. It’s completely portable and allows students to take futuristic fun on the road by empowering virtual gameplay, projecting immersive 3D videos, and creating augmented experiences wherever they want! Simply slip a compatible smartphone into VR One’s custom-made tray, insert the tray into the headset, and observe in astonishment as real-world concepts are brought to life in an amazingly intricate display inside the viewer. Thanks to its specially-designed “eye-box,” no complicated adjustments are necessary and kids can even wear the headset over their glasses. With the VR One, teachers can bring unmatched virtual reality into their classrooms at a price that’s unbelievably affordable, providing students with the kind of experiential education they need to excel!
Samsung Gear VR
The first installment of the Samsung Gear VR is actually fairly similar to the VR One, but offers students a much more immersive experience with very much improved graphics. The two viewers work essentially in the same way and have a similar price point for educators as well. When using Gear VR, all students need is a Samsung Galaxy phone and compatible VR apps that create realistic visual representations of the content they’re seeing. Then, it’s as simple as sliding the phone into the slot in the headset and watching what appears on the screen just like they’d watch TV! For teachers of younger students, the Gear VR might be the most ideal VR viewer due to the powerful but simplified VR experiences it helps create.
While it doesn’t include any haptic features, the Gear VR is an affordable option that illustrates what it’s like to use virtual reality technology. It helps create educational experiences that are experiential and incredibly immersive, which is the overall goal of VR and its greatest underlying value. It’s also valuable in the sense that it can serve as a stepping stone for students to get comfortable with virtual reality before they progress onto more powerful and complex viewers. With Gear VR, they can learn some of VR’s capabilities and even gauge if they might be subject to motion sickness without the far-too-realistic feelings some viewers provide. At just $80, Gear VR is a viable trial VR tool and, since it requires no extra equipment besides the phone, it can easily fit into any early grades classroom.
This beginner-level tool helps redefine what it means to learn with a virtual reality experience that’s perfect for kids of all ages. Using the Samsung Gear VR headset, students can jump directly into the most realistic VR experience they’ve ever had and make learning come alive! The Gear VR is engineered to feel as light as a feather, creating vivid virtual learning as kids forget they even have it on. Comfortable as can be and as interactive as it gets, the Gear VR puts kids in control and empowers them to see the big picture with a smooth and superior view of brand new realms. Plus, its controller allows students to navigate virtual worlds with unmatched simplicity, naturally enabling one-handed control as they explore over 600 compatible apps to transform their wildest dreams into crystal-clear realities! So, yeah, it’s a pretty good deal, boasting all these incredible features and coming in at under $100.
HTC Vive
If you’re really serious about virtual reality and know it definitely needs a spot in your classroom, we’ve got some higher end suggestions for you too. Since they are more powerful (and more valuable), the rest of our list is probably better suited for high school and college students, though they could work in late middle school as well. One of those incredibly immersive headsets is the HTC Vive. This unreal piece of technology creates immersive experiences that make students feel as though they really are scaling a mountain, traveling down an ancient river bed, or exploring the ruins of a lost city. The implications for enhanced education are almost endless with the HTC Vive and it all starts with putting on the headset, which is noticeably a bit more burly than some of the others—and a lot more in-depth.
Immediately after donning the headset, users fell as though they’ve been removed from the real world and transported to one they know is not real—but feels like it is. For fun, Vive offers users the chance to play interactive games, like ping pong, and makes it feel like the real thing. It has a 110-degree field of view as well, so much more is possible than simple gameplay. Its amazing graphics and haptic feedback also contribute to making users feel as though they’re actually in the places they’re seeing. By grasping the accompanying controller in their hands, students can grab, move, and pick up the objects they see in their viewer as they navigate previously unchartered worlds right in the classroom. It is relatively expensive, so one Vive per classroom may have to suffice, but the collaborative opportunities it creates will have students talking for hours!
HTC Vive has also created a global virtual reality app store called Viveport, which is filled with thousands of immersive applications that offer unparalleled access to never-before-seen environments. The store, which is just like the app stores you’re familiar with, is constantly growing and features immersive experiences that encompass all areas of education from solar system exploration to picking apart the human brain (which is also possible thanks to the haptic technology of Vive). Plus, Vive is relatively easy to set up as HTC provides a set of instructions right on their website as well as the rest of the equipment students would need for their various explorations. In order to create the ideal educational VR experience, HTC Vive should be near the top of the list of innovative educators.
Microsoft HoloLens
So, you have virtual reality and augmented reality, both of which are powerful learning and exploration tools for students and people of all ages. And, now, you also have mixed reality. What is that, you might ask? Mixed reality, like the other two ‘realities,’ is a rapidly growing field that combines virtual worlds with the real world. That’s what the creators of our next viewer, the Microsoft HoloLens, have dubbed their device. The HoloLens looks noticeably different than other VR viewers and, specifically, is much thinner than the Gear VR or HTC Vive. This is because it’s made to be used while walking around so those who put it on can truly feel as though they are walking through a virtual environment while hardly feeling the headset strapped to their face.
Essentially, the HoloLens is a self-contained, holographic computer that’s portable and works in a similar way as a regular VR viewer, according to Microsoft. It enables users to engage with digital content and interact with the holograms they are seeing through the viewer, helping to create a seemingly real world within the headset. To make this holographic computing possible, the HoloLens features multiple sensors, advanced optics, and a custom holographic processing unit, which empowers everyone who puts it on to be able to truly go beyond the screen and explore previously unchartered worlds. At the same time many tech giants are exploring the viability of mixed reality in education, the HoloLens has provided a compact product that offers students just that.
In education, the HoloLens has shown potential for inspiring students to investigate mixed reality further and even illuminated what it would take for them to design and create their own apps. HoloLens helps bring ideas to life and can legitimately change the ways in which students communicate, create, and collaborate in the classroom with a greater focus on preparing them for the technology they will be using in the real world. Once students are skilled enough to be creating their own technologies, the HoloLens can help them do so in mixed reality. Microsoft also offers HoloLens demos on their website and provides support should you encounter any problems. Its compact size, stunning immersive experiences, and ability to be used in any setting make this viewer another possibility for those who want to transform their classrooms.
Oculus Rift
We thought we’d save the best for last. These other four viewers, while pretty incredible in their own right, don’t have much on the Oculus Rift. Created by Facebook and 100 percent transportive, Oculus Rift is on a whole other level when it comes to immersive virtual reality. It’s comparable to the HTC Vive, but the technology in the Rift is superior (depending on who you ask) and the gameplay is second to none. In the classroom, students can explore the human body in incredible detail and even dive inside a minute blood vessel to utilize immersion to expound innovation. Need to get away to an ancient island or explore the deepest depths of the ocean? Oculus Rift can take students there and it’s super easy to set up.
To enjoy the full benefits of the Oculus Rift, users need to also acquire a high-scale computer, a monitor, use its handheld controllers, a keyboard, mouse, and the sensors that come in the package. These sensors enable an experience that’s even more active as they sense the environment and allows users to walk around while wearing the headset to enhance immersion even more! The controllers are what students use to navigate from screen to screen, but also how they move while in a virtual environment. They can grasp the controller in their hands and pick things up in the same way they would do so in the real world. The constant haptic feedback lets them know when they’ve got an object in their grasp by giving a quick vibration. Students can even throw things, fight enemies, and move obstacles to enhance their VR learning experience.
The Oculus Rift provides a full 360-degree virtual reality experience. Students are amazed when they travel to the bottom of the ocean and see the front of a sunken ship that they’re standing on. Then, they’re even more amazed when schools of fish, rays, and a massive blue whale swim by. And, their minds are completely blown when they turn around and realize they are standing on the bow of a massive, 100-foot tall ship that’s sunk to the ocean floor. This is the kind of learning teachers cannot provide to their students using a textbook or a worksheet. To truly see some of the most eye-opening phenomena the world has to offer, students need to experience it. And, virtual reality is their ticket to do just that as it begins to serve its purpose as one of the most disruptive technologies education will ever see.
You can find the VR One, Gear VR, and Oculus Rift in the Eduporium store and we hope to add the other two headsets soon as well as more to come as they are released! To order one for yourself, visit our online store!
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