› A Virtual Reality Tool for Teaching Library Design

PROJECT

A Virtual Reality Tool for Teaching Library Design

Supporting learners, Educational outcomes, Distance and flexible learning, Teaching strategies Information and Communications Technology

Completed

Completed: 5 April 2019

A project to develop a virtual reality tool for teaching library design. A collaboration of Victoria University of Wellington and The Open Polytechnic.

Aims:

The main aims of the project were to:

develop, apply and evaluate a Reusable Learning Object, specifically a virtual reality (VR) teaching tool that can be used to teach library design
assess students on the obstacles they identify using the tool and what they propose to do about them.

Methodology:

The project methodology involved:

developing software for use in a library design course
assessing students on their learning
students using the first stage tool writing a report (as an assignment) on the obstacles they identify and what they propose to do about them.

Philip Calvert

Project Leader

Victoria University of Wellington

Alison Fields

The Open Polytechnic

Dr Stephen Marshall

Victoria University of Wellington

Completed

$29,500.00 (excl GST)

$13,500.00 Regional Hub Project Fund

$16,000.00 Victoria University of Wellington and The Open Polytechnic

Next section: Insights and Impacts

Key Findings

Findings:

Students found the VR software to be easy to set up and use.
Students felt using VR was novel and fun, and that it forced them into a different way of thinking about a problem than they might have done by learning from traditional sources such as text.
The software is flexible and accessibility tests can be switched on and off for users.
One problem that stood out was how many students reported feeling nausea, a common problem with Virtual Reality headsets.

Key Recommendations

Recommendations:

Further funding for software development could result in a more flexible tool for further use by interested organisations.

Next section: Outputs