VR in Education is a research project investigating how virtual reality technology can be used to enable young people with complex disabilities to create a virtual world made from their own drawings, stories and sounds.

Outline and overview

In April 2001, the artist Jennie Boulter led workshops at London's Vale Resource Base for children with special needs, assisting the children in the creation of drawings and 3D paper models which were then converted into 3D files, creating an environment peopled with animated characters. The students also worked with David Harrison to create a soundtrack. A fly-through version of the children's virtual world won an Artworks National Children's Art award in July 2001. The VR in Education project is a continuing development of Boulter's work into arts and VR, which was supported in an earlier phase by London Arts Board and Year of the Artist.

In March 2002, Arts and Technology Partnerships was awarded £27,000 from NESTA to research how virtual reality technology can have significant impact within education. NESTA's support enabled Boulter, in collaboration with Professor Roy Kalawsky and Professor Ken Baynes, to take the project into the next phase, developing into an interactive virtual reality world. The project, which was completed in autumn 2002, was exhibited at Vale Resource Base, where participants in the workshop were able to navigate through the virtual world they helped create. A report on the project is now available.

A further phase of the work will seek to adapt the technology for operation on a high-end PC, and make it more widely accessible. At the same time, the aim is to open up the process for further development for mainstream teaching and learning. The vision here is that children will learn by creating their own audio-visual worlds as a digital equivalent of the conventional essay or project work. This will enable them to enter the world of audio-visual media at an early stage in their educational experience.

Project motivations

The idea came while Boulter was confined to bed with a back injury. She says: "I taught myself to use a computer and my experience of being unable to move was greatly relieved by computer games such as Myst. I thought how wonderful it would be for immobile children to be able to experience freedom of movement, flying through a virtual space which they had helped to create. It would give them creative control of their own world and the freedom to move around it - two things they usually lack."

Through the development of the project, the team learned how effective collaboration between arts, science and education can be in developing simple ways of opening up complex technology to people without computer skills and with a range of differing needs, and how it can support teaching. It is hoped that further developments of the project will open it up as a tool for mainstream teaching, and explore learning in gaming environments.

Technology used

Boulter scanned the models created by the students and re-assembled them in 3D Studio Max. The max files were then re-created as VR files using Creater (specialist VR construction kit), and the final world was viewed using Side-by-Side. The finished world was run on a home PC. Students used a range of interface devices - switches, trackballs and mouse to navigate. The world was also projected at a large scale in the classroom to increase its immersive nature.

Partners

The project was a partnership between Arts and Technology Partnerships, Loughborough University and the Vale Resource Base in Tottenham.

Contacts

Gareth Howell
Arts and Technology Partnerships
gareth@arts-technology.org
01509 228924

Arts and Technology Partnerships
Fairbairn Building
Radmoor Road
Loughborough LE11 3TU





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December 2004

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