At a school in the Czech Republic on October 20th, a groundbreaking experiment took place. Instead of pens and paper, students sat down with specially adapted VR headsets (Oculus Rift DK2s) that dropped them into a fascinating, immersive, educational experience that allowed them to interact naturally using natural hand gestures. This is the World of Comenius. World of Comenius Goes to School As a kid, I didn't much care for school. I loved to learn things, but as a shy child I never liked to ask for help from the teacher which meant that if the single textbook I had to learn from didn't make sense to me, my options for grasping the subject at hand was limited. I also found the way in which information was presented in the classroom generally pretty dull and difficult to engage with. This was well before the widespread adoption of the internet too (yes I'm that old). This is why I think a new project from the team behind Sightline demonstrates the potential for VR to change-up the way we're taught. World of Comenius, a project which started life with that goal (to enrich the learning experience) in mind, recently installed seven PCs each with the Oculus Rift DK2 VR headset, with mounted Leap Motion sensors, into a classroom at Mendel Grammar School in Opava City, Czech Republic. The school has a history of adopting progressive technologies that allow them to focus on the needs of their students and explore new and interesting ways to teach. For this event, pupils were treated to a virtual biology and anatomy lesson. Donning the Oculus Rift, they're transported to a virtual classroom with a skeletal model complete with interactive components, like bones and organs. The students reach into this world and can manipulate parts of the model at will, using just their hands. The Leap Motion controller, a device which captures infrared light, picks up the movement of your hand and interprets gestures as commands within the application. For example, clenching your fist allows you to 'pull' the world around you (or perhaps your position in the virtual world). Pointing assertively at an object 'selects' it and then snaps it to your virtual hand's orientation, allowing you to manipulate it in virtual space. Using the Oculus Rift's positional tracking, users can glance around objects while rotating them to get a better look. All of this means that World of Comenius is incredibly intuitive. With no mouse, keyboards or complicated joypads to familiarise themselves with, students are free to interact with the virtual world as they might the real world, using their hands to pick up, examine, and discard different organs from the dummy. For many students, it was their first experience with the Oculus Rift and virtual reality and reactions were positive both to VR and the project itself. The Leap Motion's tracking glitched on occasion, but it enabled a level of intuition such that students were able to largely teach themselves how to use the application and then go on to teach others, all in a matter of minutes. What's more, the air of collaboration and excitement the technology generated as pupils share what they'd learned and passed on tips to those who followed them, proves how an engaging educational experience can enliven a classroom. After the lesson was done, the World of Comenius team took the opportunity to help evangelise virtual reality further by showing pupils other VR demos, such as Sightline: The Chair. This being school, those who'd already experienced the demo took great delight in shaking the current player's chair as it reached the final scene, a hair raising moment where the player balances atop a collapsing building. See Also: Why ‘Sightline: The Chair’ on the DK2 is My New VR Reference Demo Continue Reading on Page 2 Project Evolution The event was a collaborative effort. World of Comenius itself was coded almost entirely by Tomáš “Frooxius” Mariančík, the talented developer and designer behind the impressive Sightline series of demos. Mariančík teamed up with Karel Hulec, CEO of VR Union, the company that brought you the RiftUP DK1 upgrade kits. Like me, they both had poor experiences at school and loved VR. They figured they could help make learning and teaching better, using VR to increase engagement and aid better understanding of subjects. And so, World of Comenius and a new development company, Solirax, was born. With the help of Petr Klán, Csc. from the Czech Technical University in Prague, a dialogue was started with the Mendel Grammar School which culminated in the project. The school is to be a long term collaborator, holding onto two of the Oculus Rift and Leap Motion units so that they can continue to follow the evolution of World of Comenius. Also, an educational robotics specialist Jiří Šretr, CEO of Mechatronic Education donated nVidia GTX 970 GPUs to power the experiences. The World of Comenius team have big plans for the project which include developing the building blocks to allow schools to construct their own lessons and spaces in which to collaborate on ideas and share knowledge. "It is an educational platform, where both students and teacher can build their own educational experiences and share them with others, right in the VR!" Mariančík told me. "Our goal is to provide a set of tools to easily build VR worlds with focus on education and scientific communication/visualization. Students can be carrying out tasks, solving puzzles or playing mini-games in these experiences. Future content will then depend on the students, teachers and community." A noble goal indeed, one that a 14 year old me would very much approve of. Czech Media Take Note The first event held on October 20th was also attended by an interested selection of media, including the national public television broadcaster Česká televize (see below report). Some of the nation's universities also attended to see first hand what the next generation of teaching technology might look like. Coverage was positive as was the reception of the technology by all. What's more, despite a full day of heavy VR sessions to a largely uninitiated audience, not a single case of VR / motion sickness was reported during the VR Biology lessons themselves. A pretty good day for virtual reality. So where next for the World of Comenius team? "Our goal is to make this educational platform available to everyone, even 3rd world countries. We believe that goal to better life and society is access to information and helping people understand the world around them better" says Mariančík. "We are looking for partners in Europe, USA and other countries who are interested in spreading this project and using it for education (not just schools, but also company schooling/training) in various countries, funding will help us tremendously as well." If you're interested in working with the team, you can get in touch via their Facebook page here or reach out to Tomas at his home page here. We'll stay in touch with the developments on World of Comenius and Sightline to see how things develop. All Photos Courtesy of Patrik Kavecký