THE CHALLENGES, POTENTIALS AND EXPERIENCES OF VIRTUAL REALITY LEARNING UNITS

Immersive Virtual Reality has become a mature technology. The development environments are stable and advanced as for other deployment platforms. Hardware has reached a price level that is affordable for educational institutions, at least for developed countries. However, practical experiences with virtual reality are still limited compared to other hardware used in schools. Pedagogy and didactics have only started to include the new possibilities of virtual reality into their repertoire. Therefore, it is not astounding that literature shows a rather heterogenous picture of the practical use, the pros and cons of immersive virtual reality. The first part of this paper gives an introduction into the research field of immersive virtual reality including a summary of VR worlds, their potentials and challenges. The second part disseminates the findings of two field studies with immersive virtual reality. One study happened at an undergraduate course of a university of applied science. The second study was performed at two different primary schools. Both studies aimed at the learning impact. Both studies used A/B testing to demonstrate any difference compared to standard approaches. And both studies weren't able to show a significant improved learning success. However, both learning units were able to activate students and to trigger at least for a short term a higher interest in the subject matter. If joy and pleasure are considered important for learning virtual reality is an added value.