Virtual Experiences: Visiting School Without Leaving Home

Design activities in class with virtual reality for the emotional care of students. Get to know a teacher’s proposal.

Virtual Experiences: Visiting School Without Leaving Home
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We designed a virtual space with characteristics similar to the campus, in which students traveled as if they were in their school through a virtual tour or visit.”

Social confinement and limited physical contact due to COVID-19 have resulted in several adverse effects, notably among adolescents in high school who typically experience multiple physical, psychological, and emotional changes even without a pandemic. Thus, in this phase of their development,  contact with like-minded people with whom they share tastes, experiences, and desires is of utmost importance for their emotional health and growth.

After fifteen months of living through a pandemic, the question remains whether everything can be the same as before. Even if we can begin to re-incorporate ourselves into the social environment, our return will have to be gradual and precautionary. The use of masks covering mouths will have to continue, and, unfortunately, the physical contact to which we are accustomed will have to wait.

“With virtual reality we can design activities focused on the emotional care of students affected by the lack of school social interaction due to confinement due to the pandemic.”

The suspension of face-to-face school activities directly impacted the socialization of students and had repercussions on their learning. As we have seen, a significant challenge of the educational system has been maintaining continuous quality education while also caring for students and teachers’ physical and emotional health. Therefore, classroom activity planning must fulfill this dual purpose.

Virtual Reality for the emotional care of students

Below, I share an example of an activity using Virtual Reality developed for high school students to focus on their emotional care when they lacked social interactions in school due to the pandemic confinement. Virtual Reality allows students to experience moments that improve their training, using digital elements that facilitate their interactions in difficult access situations in real-world contexts (Edu Trends, 2017).

Ninety-one students in their sixth semester of Prepa Tec high school on the Morelia campus participated. As a result of the confinement, they face the unfortunate possibility of finishing this school stage through an online format. They continuously expressed that they would like to see each other again before finishing the school year and beginning their professional academic careers.

We designed a virtual space with characteristics similar to the campus through the Mozilla Hubs platform. Particular elements were set inside this virtual reality, such as teacher photographs in the corridors and school mascot sculptures, making the students feel like they were in their school making a  tour or virtual visit. In addition, students could move around in the scene, adding more value to their experience.

“With the Mozilla Hubs virtual reality application, you can add 3D elements, video elements, audio, select an avatar, and use the microphone that allows user interaction during their virtual visit in real-time.”

Access to the Mozilla Hubs platform is free, and it is straightforward to use. It is necessary to register by email. When users enter, they select a virtual space to work, or they can design their own. 3D elements can be imported; some already come loaded on the platform. Other elements include video and audio, such as a microphone that allows users to interact in real-time during their virtual visit. Once the scene is designed, a link can be shared with those invited to the session. When entering, they select an avatar that will represent them and bear their name so that the other users can identify them.

The Activity

During the virtual tour of the school, the students had to fulfill three activities:

  1. Find a classmate with whom they had the best memories in high school. First, everyone used the previously selected avatars with their names to identify themselves. Then, the student had to tell the partner why they chose them and take a selfie together. The platform permits this function.

  2. Identify the photograph of a teacher with whom they felt connected or had affection and take a selfie with them also. The student pasted this photograph into a Word document and explained why they selected that teacher and their best memories of them.

  3. Finally, inside the virtual space, the Generation 2018-2021 Room was designed. In there, the students placed or uploaded their actual photographs. The application allows this activity. In the end, a gallery with images was made of all the students who make up the generation.

The students could finish the activity in approximately 30 minutes. However, the euphoria and emotion generated in the students made many stay until the end of the class, inside the virtual campus, sharing videos, helping each other take pictures or placing them, laughing and chatting among themselves, selecting which photographs to upload, etc. It showed that they enjoyed the activity because they found themselves together again in an environment similar to their school.

The students send the two selfies taken during the activity as evidence that they participated in the session. It also allowed them to share the photograph taken with the teachers and send positive messages about why they had selected them and what they missed and appreciated the most, thus involving them in the same experience.

Reflection

In closing, the students were asked to share which activity they enjoyed the most. What feelings were provoked in them, and what memories came to mind? The main comments included the good times they had with their classmates and professors in and out of their classes, being surrounded by different people, as if they were on campus, and seeing the photos of their classmates. They expressed nostalgia and sadness at not performing a face-to-face activity where they could film more things; they also wanted to thank their teachers personally. Some considered it a recreational activity in their regular classes, but it allowed them to value everything learned and experienced in confinement time.

School activities that consider the students’ emotional health care along with academic content are of utmost importance. The design of well-defined strategies can develop training competencies among the students just as crucial as disciplinary competencies. Cifuentes (2020) points out that when students daily face stressors such as lack of physical contact with their classmates, fear of being infected, frustration, lack of space, or boredom from not seeing their friends, it undeniably affects them psychologically.

Uncertainty about when the return to the classroom will occur still affects many students around the world. However, this period presents an excellent opportunity to reinvent ourselves, experiment, and work on personal growth, consequently benefitting our students and providing positive social development.

 

About the Author

Fernando Patricio Pantoja Bedolla (fernando.pantoja@tec.mx) is a dental surgeon. He has a Master’s degree in Education with a focus on Teaching-Learning Processes. He is a full-time professor-tutor at Prepa Tec of Tecnológico de Monterrey on the Morelia Campus. He has participated as a speaker on educational innovation at national and international congresses.

References

Cifuentes, J. (2020). Consecuencias del Cierre de Escuelas por el Covid-19 en las Desigualdades Educativas. Revista Internacional de Educación para la Justicia Social. Recuperado de https://revistas.uam.es/riejs/article/view/12216

Edu Trends. (2017). Realidad Aumentada y Realidad Virtual. Observatorio de Innovación Educativa. Accessed at https://observatorio.tec.mx/edu-trends-realidad-virtual-y-realidad-aumentada

Pantoja, F. [Fernando Pantoja]. (2021, junio 14). Prepa Tec Morelia Visita Virtual Campus. [Archivo de video]. Accessed at  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jl8UFmZRtV8

Edited by Rubí Román (rubi.roman@tec.mx) – Observatory of Educational Innovation.

Translation by Daniel Wetta.

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Fernando Patricio Pantoja Bedolla

This article from Observatory of the Institute for the Future of Education may be shared under the terms of the license CC BY-NC-SA 4.0