4 Practical things Schools should consider before Introducing Virtual Reality

Before jumping into purchasing devices there's a few things you might want to explore.

Head Mounted Devices (HMD) are a big part of the experience, and the question is what do schools need to know to make an informed decision?

We went out and did the research, evaluated various HMDs, investigated available educational content, assessed challenges with school system networks and then tested with students and teachers to help you decide.

Deciding what’s important and what’s not means different things to different schools, therefore we’ve outlined the top 4 key pain points to help you on your way.

1. Student Safety: Movement & Space

The freedom to move around with a HMD is known as Degrees of Freedom (DoF) - You have a choice between 3DoF or 6DoF. Each will be best used for a different scenario.

Here are some of use cases we’ve found our School Customers are looking into.

3 DoF use case - Mainly for viewing specific subject related content, best used during a lesson to enhance student engagement. Better for junior high or when students are seated with limited movement required. It's still a great immersive experience. Here are some 3DOF option to look at: DPVR P1 2.5K or 4K and Pico G2

6 DoF use case - Designing and exploring on various creative applications with freedom of movement, gaming type applications and open choices for app purchase. Minimum of a 2Square meter space required for safety and movement. Look for Oculus Quest 2 (has some limitations) or HTC Vive Focus 3 and Pico Neo 3.

2. Management of Devices

The management of devices has various components to consider like keeping track and storing devices as per School Technical Assets Register.

• How many devices would you need? The quick answer is, enough to keep all students in the classroom engaged. Consider designing lessons so that students can share devices. .

• For Storage and charging we recommend a purposely designed case to store devices away neatly with inbuilt charging mechanisms.

• Disinfecting Devices and Health & Safety protocols, we recommend a storage anti-virus case. You can find a DPVR Anti-virus case, an All-in-One storage and charging unit, at an affordable price.

• For further info on Cleaning and Disinfecting Virtual Reality Equipment under the NSW public health go here https://www.health.nsw.gov.au/Infectious/covid-19/update/Pages/cleaning-disinfecting-vr-equipment.aspx .

3. Educational Content and Management

Educational Content is becoming more available, however, there are various platforms that require subscription options. You can download content straight from within the HMD, don’t forget to check your storage levels!

Vive Port, Oculus Quest, DPVR and Pico have great educational content available on most HMDs, some of it free. There is Free VR Content on YouTube and YouTube VR but some schools require a content management system to control what students are able to view.

Teacher resources such as VR lessons and worksheets for subjects like History or Geography are becoming more available from companies like Smartstone and

VR Learning & Design Hub, who are creating Australian curriculum content.

We are big fans of students being creators, producing their own content and learning skills for future jobs and careers, using VR authorising tool like present4D. The VRCreate course allows students to build and design in VR software using 360 degree images and other interactive content which can be viewed directly into a headset device.

4. Tech Specs vs Price

One of the pain points brought up by teachers trying to introduce VR to schools is Price. From our experience Schools don’t need to go for high end technology specs, unless you’re in gaming and development, the average tech spec will be more than enough. Some things you could look out for are:

Specifications	​What to look for
Movement	3DoF or 6DoF? 3DoF is great, you might want to introduce 6DoF later on
Resolution	4K is fantastic, You might even like 2.5K as a cheaper option
Refresh Rate	Don't go less than 72Hz
Storage	Anything from 32GB is fine unless you plan to download lots of apps
Battery Life	2-3 hours is average DPVR has 5hrs (best we’ve found so far)
Field-of-view	Not less than100° to allow for immersive feeling

See our Questionnaire form for schools below. These questions will assist in developing a clear use case and take into consideration the points above to help create a holistic approach and justification for price.

Questionnaire for schools

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The benefits of using VR to help new employees step into their role with confidence

Why you should consider Virtual Reality for onboarding

Driven by increasing demands on delivery outcomes, the small - medium business owners focus on capabilities and skills to get the job done and with Onboarding best practices taking up to 3 months; it often becomes inconsistent and generally new employees are expected to integrate as quickly as possible by ‘hitting the ground running’ or having to rely on team members to help them out.

Employers want employees to belong, feel engaged whilst getting the job done. Some of the reasons why onboarding becomes complicated are: the setting up of onboarding processes which aren’t always prioritised, time constraints, not knowing how to engage with employees working from home and teams that are split interstate, or just too many variables.

How does VR help provide a benefit?

Choosing to use virtual reality for onboarding can immediately raise the level of engagement of employees by delivering the induction process in a fun, practical and impactful way. Being immersed in a real space, using 360-degree images and 3D environments, employees feel the emotions of being present and this aids in their learning process and retaining information.

A VR solution combines and streamlines all onboarding activities in one place. The benefits clearly helping to shorten the onboarding period and help employees feel engaged.

• Delivering a consistent message, share a message from the CEO that delivers the vision and key goals of the company. This message in VR can be impactful and by making it interactive via gamification, allows the employee to feel quickly integrated with company values and culture.

• Showcasing the office, kitchen/meeting places or different sites, new starters become familiar with various locations by transporting them via a Virtual Tour to production sites, manufacturing plants and workshops that might not usually be within easy reach. By immersing them in these tours new employees can immediately relate and feel appropriately succinct providing huge benefits in those initial meetings.

• Provide upfront scenario-based training for onboarding situations, such as, instructions on how set up their IT equipment, perhaps include a quiz about their level of technical competency, giving employers an indication of how much assistance the employee might need, information about their desk space should they eventually come into the office; right down to where to find office supplies.

• Opportunities to further improve skills based training Besides onboarding, key training situations could be; health and safety in the workplace, and more scenario skills based training such as introducing information about customers, sales or company products and services.

These onboarding and training situations can give an employee key insight at the start of their learning, which could generally take many weeks to understand.

Virtual Reality brings the WOW

For those working remotely, the learning curve is usually steep, compared to those in the office where often learning is via coffee chats and water coolers. There’s a genuine hesitation for companies to move forward with emerging technology and a key factor being introducing new ways of working which could impact day to day productivity.

However, there’s tons of research that connects high levels of engagement with increased productivity and businesses should be looking to stand out and WOW their employees.

How small business can engage with VR technology to gain a competitive edge

Small business may be tempted to not engage with trending technology but there are risks associated with not evolving and not staying relevant in a changing market. With the trajectory of digitalisation in business accelerated owing to the coronavirus pandemic which has fast become a catalyst in reviving business and consumer interest in emerging technologies such as Augmented and Virtual Reality, here is a first step to integrate virtual technology into your small business.

Use high resolution 360-degree images

If you are a business that engages with social media such as Facebook, YouTube and Google to advertise and market, you will be aware that visual media performs better than text. It is becoming more and more challenging to standout and connect with your customers and having stunning and compelling visual content is critically important to your digital marketing strategy. With 360⁰ images your customers get to view and experience your products or location from the convenience of their computer or smartphone. Using these immersive images on your social media and website allows customers to virtually interact with your business or product.

3 ways this increases customer contact

1. Increased customer engagement: as there is an element of exploration with 360⁰ images, customers will spend more time browsing and viewing your products. The longer they engage with your website the increased likelihood of them becoming a paying customer.

2. Google Street View: by adding 360-degree images to your Google Street View, you further entice customers by showcasing your location and products.

3. Increase Search engine rankings: these rankings are increased by increasing the amount of time a visitor spends on your website. 360-degree Images encourage a customer to spend more time browsing and exploring your website.

DO IT YOURSELF!

You can easily do this by creating and publishing your own 360⁰ images.

See here https://www.momento360.com/