Virtual Reality Content for Higher Education: Challenges and Opportunities

Virtual reality (VR) promises to offer a revolution in how learning occurs. VR environments present new pedagogical opportunities, including vivid, engaging, and realistic learning experiences; immersion into inaccessible spaces and eras; stronger emotional attachment to topics and increased social empathy; and critical thinking in experiential learning situations. However, good VR educational content is still lacking. This presentation will introduce a pedagogical vision for VR content creation in a teaching-oriented university setting and the VR production workflow at California State University, San Bernardino. We will discuss the pedagogical principles that informed our projects, the student and faculty-led production model, our current projects, and the challenges of making this model workable and sustainable. We will conclude with an agenda for future directions for VR content development and research.