Teaching Students To Create In VR

The College & Career Lab enables NYC area high school students to develop skills for exploring careers and navigating barriers to college and post-secondary opportunities.  The iTLAB, working with input provided by C&CL Director, Alexandria Meier, created a two-week course with a focus on virtual reality,  in which students received guidance using VR hardware, software, and immersive experiences, to create a project connecting VR to an area of professional interest. 

After consulting with Alexandria, a syllabus was drafted and approved. Then, the iTLAB went to work designing daily agendas, not only to provide structure but identify the virtual reality tools and software that best supported the theme of a given day.  Our goal was a consistent balance of presentation, demonstration, and interactivity in support of the overarching assignment to create a project connecting VR to an area of professional interest. 

Our daily structure began every day as a full group, during which we presented content, conducted demonstrations, and introduced students to virtual reality experiences. Following a break, the second half typically involved separating into two groups, allowing students to concentrate on project-focused work.

To get a sense of the course content, you can examine some materials using the links below.

DAY ONE

On the first day, after welcoming the students, we showed a  concise presentation about virtual reality hardware (link below).  This was followed by a live virtual reality demonstration, after which, students had their introduction to VR. The theme was immersive play, and the video below demonstrates avatar customization in VR.

DAY TWO

On the second day, we introduced VR tools that permit users to create 3D content. To illustrate a "VR-only" creative tool, we began with a three-dimensional drawing application called Open Brush (derived from Google's Tilt Brush, which is now open-source). This was a good way to ease students into complex menus for managing the many creative options the application provides.  As a counterpoint, we showed a VR application called Vermillion that focuses on realistically simulating oil painting.  

You can examine examples using the links below.

DAY THREE

On day three, we focused on single-user virtual reality, but because this covers a lot of territory, we concentrated on experiences that transport users to a convincingly realized simulated world.  In the first instance, students went through 'Anne Frank House,' a simulation in which we are brought into an accurate reproduction of the Anne Frank house with voice over and annotations to provide educational context to the immersive experience. As a counterpoint, the second instance was Vader Immortal, a cinematic, gamified entertainment simulation in the Star Wars universe, to demonstrate the potential of merging traditional cinema with virtual reality.

DAY FOUR

Day four brought us to multi-user virtual reality. Like single-user VR, this covers a lot of territory, so we selected experiences we hoped demonstrated the broadest array of possibilities. This included a multi-platform social and entertainment experience called Rec Room, which allowed users to create custom avatars in VR and explore a range of environments, games, and experiences with other users. In the second instance, we brought students into a fully customized VR environment that was created with the same tools available to them - the 3D building was created with a VR architectural application called Arkio, which was hosted in a web-based immersive tool called Wonda Spaces. Following this session, we provided additional guidance using Arkio (which proved challenging for many students) and Wonda, which several students leveraged for their final project. 

In the video below, you can see students in a shared VR environment passing around a 3D model of an apple, enlarged in real-time through VR gesture interactions. 

DAY FIVE

On day 5 (the last session of week one), we provided instruction in the use of Arkio (as mentioned earlier), and introduced one more creative application - a musical instrument simulation called Paradiddle - music-making was under-represented in our content, but we didn't want to completely neglect it. Overall, the bulk of the day was devoted to helping students commit to their project idea and consider how to execute it in the second week of the session. 

DAY SIX

On day six, we began with a super-basic presentation about project management, which was admittedly drier than other material we'd been offering, but we felt it had value in a course framed around VR as it relates to careers. With that said, we provided broad ideas on approaches to managing large or complex projects, mentioning methods like Agile and Scrum, without diving too deeply.  Later, we provided more instruction for Wonda Spaces, and a lesson on creating custom avatars using Ready Player Me.

DAY SEVEN

Day seven was focused on the role of work samples in job seeking. We discussed professions in which one needs a portfolio or work samples, highlighting visual professions, such as photography, graphic design, videographer or video editor, creative director, and artist. We mentioned performance careers, such as acting or modeling, and emphasized technology professions, like software development, game design, web design and development, and UX/UI design, the role of work samples not always being apparent to people interested in those fields. The goal of this conversation was to draw a connection to the potential of the projects students were working on during the session. We also discussed digital portfolios and potential platforms for presenting work, including Sketchfab as a resource for 3D content hosting, acquisition, and presentation.

DAY EIGHT

Day eight was about giving and receiving feedback. We discussed approaches based on environment (work, school, etc.), the difference between aesthetic and functional feedback, and the value it has on improving work in development. To facilitate the topic, the class critiqued this website for function and presentation. Overall, the intention of this topic was to prepare the students to receive feedback from the iTLAB team on their projects. During the second half of the session, we reviewed student work and offered recommendations on how to improve based on the medium and approach the student was taking, which was quite varied.  Student projects included 3D sculptures, immersive presentations, simulated oil paintings, VR analysis, and high-resolution 3D modeling.

DAY NINE

The theme of day nine was adaptation, which opened with  the following questions:

• Are there any changes in the project you are going to do?

• Can you still complete the end of the week?

• If not, how will you pivot?

This framing was to help the students see the necessity of being able to adapt their work, sometimes with short notice, to meet the need of a fixed deadline. Ultimately, only one student ended up making a significant change.

DAY TEN

Day ten was to finish and share projects. References to everyone's work were displayed in the custom VR gallery that was created with Arkio and hosted in Wonda Spaces to illustrate the use of the tools to the students.  At presentation time, we toured the VR gallery, where each student spoke about their project and answered questions. You can examine the gallery here.

CONCLUSION

It is always a lot of work to design what one hopes will be a meaningful learning experience while knowing not every student will connect to the material or the style of instruction, but introducing the students of the College & Career Lab to virtual reality proved to be a very rewarding endeavor. It was a privilege to watch them open to the possibilities of this amazing technology, and we had many interesting conversations about the impact virtual reality will have on careers, culture, and human experiences. When discussing immersive technologies like VR and AR with students, we invariably arrive at Black Mirror, an excellent sci-fi-horror anthology show that speculates on the worst outcomes of these (and related) technologies in the next twenty years or so. Students rightly understand that the speculations of Black Mirror are in no way confined to a fantasy that cannot happen. My standard response is as follows; immersive technology will mirror the best and worst of us, as many technologies before have. By acknowledging this, those of us with the inclination may drive it to favor us at our best. 

That's certainly the iTLAB's intention.