Top Educational Virtual Reality Experiences for Students
Technologies like virtual reality, especially for Gen Z students’, provides avenues that allow them to engage in a social, collaborative, and active learning environment.
The theory of constructivist-based learning is even more powerful when placed in a social and immersive context like that provided by virtual reality.
Virtual reality allows the student to participate in the story, develop empathy to experiences outside their current realm of understanding and allows them to be fully immersed in their own exploration and learning.
“The world of reality has its limits; the world of imagination is boundless.” — Jean-Jacques Rousseau
While it’s still a relatively new technology being used in an educational context, there are already some really great VR experiences available for use in the classroom.
Here are a few of my top picks for VRedu experiences in the classroom.
Titans of Space
Titans of Space is a short guided tour of a few planets and stars, the point of which is to give the player a sense of scale of just how big these planets and stars are compared to each other.
Platform(s): Oculus RIFT | Samsung Gear VR | Google Cardboard
Sites VR
Sites VR is a tour of landmarks from Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Morocco, Kuwait, Yemen, Macedonia, Holland, Belgium and France. Examine the marvels of architecture, visit mosques, tombs, palaces, museums, castles, towers, historic houses, religious sites, ancient cities and other places with more than a thousand 360° panoramic images in high quality.
Platform(s): Google Cardboard
Discovery VR
Discovery Virtual Reality can take you to new worlds like never before, immersing you in time, space and story. Here’s a first look at our latest productions in this exhilarating new space — from shark-infested shipwrecks to freeboarding the windiest street in the world — with much more to come.
Platform(s): Google Cardboard
“What it [VR] offers as a tool for creating worlds and experimenting with some of the ideas underpinning logic and programming that make it exciting — together with the incredible community of users and their creations.” -Tom Chatfield
Anatomyou
Anatomyou is a perfect immersive 3D-stereo app to learn human body’s anatomy. The app shows on a mobile device and virtual immersive 3D navigation the anatomical structures of various systems of the human body.
Platform(s): Google Cardboard
Mars Is A Real Place
Mars Is A Real Place is a short slideshow of amazing Martian landscapes, in VR. More than 50 high-resolution stereoscopic 3D images have been carefully hand-picked and presented for your viewing pleasure.
VR Platform(s): Google Cardboard | Oculus RIFT
“The experience of participating in a story, as teller or audience, is typically that of being caught up in it while it is being told…Stories convey meaning about the social context and identity of the teller and audience.” — John McLeod
InMind
InMind allows the player to experience the journey into the patient’s brains in search of the neurons that cause mental disorder. Submerge into the microworld and experience the miracles of the human mind.
Platform(s): Oculus RIFT | Google Cardboard
Cardio VR
Cardio VR allows students to enter a virtual reality doctor’s surgery where you search for your patient’s ailment using x-ray vision. And speaking of vision, navigate your way through the diagnosis using your eyes — just look at the eye icon for help.
Cardio is a fun, child-friendly and gender-neutral immersive experience. There is no win or lose, just come and enjoy the surgery.
Platform(s): Google Cardboard
Chemistry VR
Chemistry VR uses the Cardboard Magnet to move forward and select your chosen chemical elements. All the elements of the Mendeleev table are available.
Your goal is to find the required chemical elements to create compounds like water.
Platform(s): Google Cardboard
King Tut VR
King Tut VR: Surrounded by Egyptian art, this audio experience guides you through the virtual tour. Tutankhamun was an Egyptian pharaoh of the 18th dynasty, during the period of Egyptian history known as the New Kingdom.
Platform(s): Google Cardboard
Google Expeditions
Google Expeditions is a virtual reality platform built for the classroom. Google worked with teachers and content partners from around the world to create more than 100 engaging journeys — making it easy to immerse students in entirely new experiences.
Platform: Google Cardboard
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