Experience Education in 360° with VR Video

Virtual Reality (VR) has rapidly gained momentum in recent years due to technological advancements. Experiencing content through a VR headset creates a strong sense of mental and physical presence in the situation being viewed. Thanks to 360-degrees video, users can look around freely and decide for themselves where to focus their attention. This results in a realistic and immersive experience, as if you were truly there.

To explore the added value of VR in education, we submitted a project proposal to the SURF Innovation Challenge 2016-2017. Our proposal was selected as one of the five winning projects, which enabled us to carry out our research.

Our aim was to identify situations in which students could be immersed in a learning environment in a relatively accessible way. The application of this technology is not limited to the behavioural sciences; it is also highly relevant for teacher education, law programmes, medical education and other fields where observing complex or hard-to-access situations contributes to student learning.

The results of our research were published in the booklet 360 graden video in het onderwijs – maak het nu mee (360-degree video in education – experience it now). In this publication, we explain our approach and describe scenarios in which 360-degree video offers didactic advantages over traditional teaching methods. We also outline the recording process and key technical considerations. Due to rapid technological developments, some of the technical details have since become outdated. Updates on current developments are shared in our showcase on VR, AR and XR.

Although the booklet 360 graden video in het onderwijs was published in 2017 and contains some outdated technical information, it continues to generate new collaborations with partners interested in pioneering the development of VR applications in education. You can view the booklet via the link below.