Presented at ALT-C 2017 This 40 minute interactive session will evaluate Virtual Reality (VR) experiences that have been created with increasingly ubiquitous tools by academic staff and learning technologists. In addition, delegates will explore how the VR techniques demonstrated can be applied to their own learning and teaching. Applications in different contexts such as Engineering, archaeological fieldwork, and orientation to new spaces will be discussed.

1. Can Virtual Reality be
the new normal?
Farzana Latif @farzanalatif
Graham McElearney @grahamMacca
Tom Foster @frostytom
University of Sheffield

2. Outline
▷What is VR?
▷Pedagogical value
▷Range of approaches
▷Examples
▷Activity

3. What is VR?
A high-end user interface that involves real time simulation and interaction
through multiple sensorial channels (vision, taste, smell, touch)
Girgorie and Phillipe (2003)

4. What is VR?

5. Immersive

6. What is the pedagogical benefit?
▷ Experience the Un-Experienceable
Historical, Scientific, Medical
Inaccessible places
▷ View from a different perspective
▷ Orientations
▷ Environmental Observations
▷ Immersive Storytelling
▷ Simulated Practice
Training to operate complex machinery
Dalgarno and Lee (2010)

8. Out of the box solutions
▷ Improving communication skills - VirtualSpeech
▷ Experience places difficult to get to - Discovery VR
▷ Experiences to prepare you for future work - Medical
Realities
▷ Experience places that no longer exist - Timelooper

9. Chemistry Lab - Orientation

10. no interaction, other than
click on view
camera quality
analytics - limited
RoundME
YouVisit
- view with
cardboard
gamification, individualised
experience
Limitations

12. Share your experience (5 mins)
https://padlet.com/telfest/alt_vr

13. Arbor Low Case Study

14. VR in Archaeology
Driven by
Presentation - largely in heritage
industry contexts
Research, Research led teaching

15. VR In Archaeology - Heritage presentation

16. VR In Archaeology - Heritage presentation

17. Use in research and teaching
Phenomenological approaches to
Sites
Landscapes

18. Phenomenological approaches
Questions what the experience of being in these places
would have been like in the past?
Architectural forms of monuments via reconstructions
VR offers the possibility of experiencing these in an
embodied experience - e.g. first person perspective cf
Haraway’s “God Trick” view

19. Arbor Low
https://digitalmedia.sheffield.ac.uk/media/Arbor+Low+in+its+broader+landscape/1_kji6r2p4/69103801

20. Case study Arbor Low
Sits in an ancient landscape surrounded by other
monuments
Stones are now “recumbant”, although once
thought to be upright like Stonehenge
But what would it have really looked like in the
past? How would this be experienced?
https://digitalmedia.sheffield.ac.uk/media/Arbor+Low+in+its+broader+landscape/1_kji6r2p4/69103801

21. Arbor Low PhD case study
Interactive 3d reconstruction
created as niche PhD project
“Ideal” aim was to experience
reconstruction whilst out in
the field..
...No real way to deliver it for
use in e.g. field trips
Development ceased for 10
years

22. Arbor Low in the curriculum in 2017
Arbor Low used as a field trip destination for students on a
number of courses
Site can be freely explored and is easily accessible
2017 - Field trips are now enhanced by
Exploring Arbor Low Unity app
PVR Round Me tour - here
ActionBound
ESRI Story Maps

23. Exploring Arbor Low app in the field
Recent developments in mobile deployment of 3d
models means that this resource can now be
taken into the field
Freely available software used - Unity, Xcode
Is being made freely available on App store -
moving from “niche” to “normal”

24. Exploring Arbor Low app in the field
Students can freely move around the model -
not constrained to fixed viewpoints
Students can interrogate the model and
explore key concepts whilst at the monument
Did it work?

27. Activity
Design you own VR Experience

28. Future?

29. References
▷ AltspaceVR (2017) Be there, together. Available at: http://altspacevr.com (Accessed: 15 January 2017).
▷ Case Western Reserve University (2016) Microsoft HoloLens lets case western reserve, Cleveland Clinic
reimagine health education. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4isrqqTlQA (Accessed: 27
January 2017).
▷ DavidMJourno (2017) VR: A new dimension in learning? Available at:
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/features/vr-new-dimension-learning (Accessed: 15 January 2017).
▷ Dredge, S. (2016) The complete guide to virtual reality – everything you need to get started. Available at:
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/nov/10/virtual-reality-guide-headsets-apps-games-
vr?CMP=share_btn_tw (Accessed: 15 January 2017).
▷ Flanigan, T. (no date) Fitness meets VR gaming with this badass flying machine. Available at:
http://mashable.com/2017/01/12/fitness-vr-gaming-flying/#9_pqMkNyOaq9 (Accessed: 27 January 2017).
▷ Foods, H. (2017) The black market - bacon virtual reality viewer. Available at:
https://buy.blacklabelbacon.com/collections/merchandise/products/the-black-market-bacon-virtual-reality-
viewer (Accessed: 15 January 2017).
▷ Fowler, C. (2014) ‘Virtual reality and learning: Where is the pedagogy?’, British Journal of Educational
Technology, 46(2), pp. 412–422. doi: 10.1111/bjet.12135.

30. References
▷ Kenwright, M. (2016) VTime: The VR sociable network - out now for gear VR, Oculus rift, iPhone, Google daydream,
and Google cardboard. Available at: https://vtime.net/vtime (Accessed: 15 January 2017).
▷ Martín-Gutiérrez, J. (2016) ‘Virtual technologies trends in education’, EURASIA Journal of Mathematics, Science and
Technology Education, 13(1). doi: 10.12973/eurasia.2017.00626a.
▷ Maxbox VR (2017) Maxbox VR. Available at: https://www.maxboxvr.com/ (Accessed: 15 January 2017).
▷ Ng, A. (2016) Facebook shows how it’s gonna make virtual reality social. Available at:
https://www.cnet.com/uk/news/facebook-mark-zuckerberg-shows-off-live-vr-virtual-reality-chat-with-oculus-rift/
(Accessed: 15 January 2017).
▷ Tarr, M.J. and Warren, W.H. (2002) ‘Virtual reality in behavioral neuroscience and beyond’, Nature Neuroscience,
5(Supp), pp. 1089–1092. doi: 10.1038/nn948.
▷ Theta tools: Softwares, apps and online programs (2017) Available at: https://www.facebook.com/notes/ricoh-theta-
users-on-facebook/theta-tools-softwares-apps-and-online-programs/1711017565783099 (Accessed: 15 January 2017).
▷ University of Westminster academics collaborate in developing cutting-edge games for criminal law students (2016)
Available at: https://www.westminster.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/2016/university-of-westminster-academics-
collaborate-in-developing-cutting-edge-games-for-criminal-law-students (Accessed: 15 January 2017).
▷ https://www.technologyreview.com/s/603208/behind-the-numbers-of-virtual-realitys-sluggish-debut/