What must be seen is that the resources and cutting-edge technologies that most schools now receive are still limited, so to gain market share, VR developers need to create content that is still convenient and affordable in the case of large-scale applications. And equipment.
From anatomizing frogs away from guilt, to a history lesson on ancient Roman themes, or swimming with marine life in the Galapagos Islands, Virtual Reality (VR) provides modern students with a more realistic and immersive experience. The learning experience in the environment allows them to interact with the 3D environment and place themselves at different times and places.
Although the initial publicity hot spot for VR was mainly the gaming industry, as VR technology matured, this new tool quickly entered the classroom. Google launched the Pioneer Expeditions project in September 2015, giving American schools the opportunity to experiment with this new technology, and recently announced that more than 500,000 British students experienced “digital travel†using Google Cardboard VR hoods in 2016 .
For VR developers, education has proven to be a viable and profitable market. A well-known market research company TechNavio recently announced a report entitled “Global Virtual Reality in the Education Industry Market 2017-2021†showing that the global education industry’s virtual reality (VR) business will be 55.42% during 2017-2021. The compound annual growth rate has grown rapidly.
So how do developers interested in VR education go forward? Baptiste Grève, the founder and CEO of Uniersiv, the VR education content supply platform, presented his suggestions.
1) Focus on the phone
Although VR technology has progressed rapidly, it is still in its infancy. Although high-end headpieces such as the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, which connect to personal computers, provide the best graphics and user experience, they are expensive — they cost about $600 to $800 each. In addition, they are only compatible with the latest generation of fast-processing computers.
Despite releases such as Robo Recall et al. earlier this year, the critically acclaimed new games were developed specifically for the Oculus Rift headgear - developers trying to take advantage of the full potential of this new technology are understandable, but are unable to meet most budgets Demand for schools with limited resources.
Therefore, VR developers who focus on education should make their content compatible with smartphone VR devices such as Samsung Gear, Google Daydream, and Google Cardboard.
According to the latest SuperData research report, VR headsets compatible with smartphones sold best in 2016. For example, the number of Google Cardboard sold or distributed free of charge exceeded 84.4 million, and Samsung Gear VR sold 5 million, compared with Oculus. The Rift and HTC Vive PC VR kits have only 335,000 sets and 420,000 sets.
Another fact that should not be overlooked is that in the past few years, smart phones have become a common classroom tool. More than 75% of American high school students bring their own smart devices during class. At this point, it is logical for schools to invest in smartphone VR technology, and the success of Google’s Expeditions program over the past two years also supports this view.
2) Developing Content Using Unity 3D Engine
Unreal Engine 4 and Unity are two of today's most popular game engines, and the VR development community has different views on which engine is best. Both tools have their benefits, but Unity is still more popular - about 59% of VR developers are using this software.
Unreal Engine 4 is known for its graphics capabilities, but Unity may be more suitable if you don't need to create next-generation graphics elements. Taking into account the use of the education market, content for education is unlikely to be compatible with "next generation", especially for smart phone VR hoods.
From our experience, using Unity makes it easier to “switch†content for different head covers. It only took us a short time to convert our own content for use on Samsung Gear to Google's Daydream.
When aiming at the education market, this flexibility will be a key factor for success because different schools in different countries have different levels of VR technology.
The global initiatives of those tech giants will make it very likely that we will see VR become a mainstream tool for schools in the near future. So far, Google has done the most work in popularizing VR technology in schools in the United States and Europe. Like leading technology companies such as Facebook and Microsoft, Google is also working with Unity.
Of course both engines are great, and Unreal could also be a stronger technology tool. However, in our opinion, Unity is a simple and high-quality engine with very good flexibility and compatibility with a range of devices and platforms.
3) Understand the true market potential
As a developer or producer, your main goal is to make your content reach as many people as possible.
Many developers may therefore believe that the best way to demonstrate their skills on the global stage is to target 1.8 billion active players worldwide. For example, historically, the highest scored games in the app store quickly circulated in the gaming community.
However, although creative education content is not as eye-catching as the development of mainstream games, technology giants once emphasized that “education is one of the key markets for new technologiesâ€.
When Facebook announced last year that it would further invest $250 million in the Oculus Rift, its founder, Zuckerberg, also specifically raised $10 million from this fund for R&D in education. Zuckerberg stated that education will be a powerful field that demonstrates the potential of VR.
Today Oculus's app store has 10% of educational experience projects and, like other leading VR products, has opened application stores that specialize in selling educational content. Facebook and Google have publicly supported the introduction of VR into mainstream education. This undoubtedly makes us see that there will be a lot of financing and trading activities in this area in the future.
4) Equipped with academic experts for product testing
It goes without saying that if you want to create content to teach talented young people, you must be careful enough to provide them with accurate enough information.
Obviously, not every developer will have a history, biology, or physics background. Therefore, compared to spending a lot of time to collect teaching materials, developers can seek help from the teacher community as soon as possible.
Today's teachers are active on the Internet. Many people have created their own pages on platforms like Facebook, Medium, and Reddit to share problems, solutions, and teaching resources used in class. Developers should rely on these online communities to convene contributors to create content, as well as to look for candidates to test the product in the future and check the accuracy of the content.
While creating high-quality content, this is also a good way for teachers to promote products in their own schools and communities. This connection may also create partnerships between more schools, teaching institutions, and VR content creators.
VR has endless opportunities in the field of education. Developers need to involve educators from the very beginning so that they can provide guidance, ideas and test products from a teaching perspective. Developers and teachers are finally moving toward the same goal - creating amazing new content and technology so that students can fully participate in learning.
At the end of the article, Greve argued that if the teaching community, technology companies, and developers can effectively cooperate, VR hoods can become textbooks and pens in a few years and become an indispensable common device in classroom teaching.
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