Creating Virtual Reality Teaching Modules for Low-Cost Headsets

In the past few years, remote learning has been on a trend of steady growth and it is projected to remain on that course in the years to come. Additionally, the global COVID-19 pandemic forced a shift to remote learning which accelerated the existing trend to remote education. Unfortunately, learners find remote classes less engaging than traditional face-to-face classes. One technology that has shown great potential to improve students’ engagement, both in face-to-face classes and remote classes, is Virtual Reality (VR). Nevertheless, while educators are no longer limited to expensive, high-tech, and high-fidelity VR hardware thanks to the introduction of low-cost, low fidelity headset, like the Google Cardboard, educators are still limited in getting relevant content and find it difficult to create their own VR teaching modules. With the objective to address these limitations, this work introduces a new process to create VR content that is easy, rapid, and affordable for educators to adopt and implement into their curriculum. The results indicate great potential for low-cost VR in remote learning as the sample of students in this study reported that they enjoyed the ‘first-hand experience’ of touring places that were inaccessible to them due to the pandemic. However, the findings also show a strong need to address usability issues such as blurriness and dizziness.