Students as VR/AR Creators

What happens when the power of emergent technology is used to enable learning opportunities? Joyce Zhou, chair and associate professor of marketing at Emporia State University, wanted to explore that question. She approached the Learning Design and Research team at the university early last spring with one central question in mind:

Do you think virtual reality (VR) technology is something we can use in my undergraduate marketing course to teach students the concepts of developing immersive marketing applications and points of sale?

Zhou was prompted by applications she had seen in her own research and personal shopping experiences. The learning designers enthusiastically began a partnership with Zhou's students that led the course in a completely new, exciting, and experiential direction. She began her quest using a stimulus grant provided to faculty. These grants are intended to encourage faculty to think about new and innovative technology applications that can be used with their students and within their discipline. The result: deliverables that are demonstrated to both the client(s) and senior administration at the conclusion of the term.

Student-Led Learning Design

Zhou required her students to partner with various businesses and organizations located throughout the city. Emporia State is located in a relatively small community whose business and service providers probably have not had a chance to develop innovative marketing products and services. Small teams of students developed a marketing plan for their selected organization or business. The sectors included retail, hospitality, nonprofit, elder and health care, real estate, and education. This type of public-private relationship between students and the business community provided multiple affordances, not the least of which is an opportunity for students to assume the role of project managers and content creators. In learning design, we often promote the concept of experiential, active, and project-based learning. You might consider this a form of "transfer learning"—what education expert Jeff Selingo refers to as a generalization of core principles and application in different contexts, which is often applied in internships.

To help the students get started, learning designers held a kickoff meeting to demonstrate the technology. Everything from simple cardboard VR headsets to the more sophisticated Oculus Rift system was demonstrated. Students then learned how to use a 360-degree VR camera, tripod, and software to record their environments. Adding additional immersive features such as virtual points of sale, hyperlinks, and embedded multimedia was also demonstrated for the students. Each team, in turn, was provided with the necessary technology. The products students returned with were pretty amazing and illustrated what is possible when the tables are turned and they are required to be content creators rather than content consumers (see figure 1).

Sharing Students' Projects with the World

One of the great things about the products the students developed was the variety of ways they could be distributed. The end users didn't need to have a VR headset, although that typically provided the richest experience. Other output options included Android and iOS phones and websites. This ensured that the virtual environment could be leveraged by the maximum number of potential and current patrons. Interestingly, some of these applications were posted to the software vendor's website, which resulted in a record number of views. Other products were posted on the businesses' websites and social media accounts.

Based on the success of this undergraduate marketing concept project, the learning designers plan to continue partnering with the School of Business to develop VR applications for their courses. Another goal is to expand this effort to include augmented reality applications.

A Public-Private Partnership: Lessons Learned

The learning designers discovered early in this process the importance of applying sound design methodologies to ensure alignment with the learning outcomes. The resulting products were as much about learning design as they were marketing. These projects included clear deliverables, strategies for feedback, engagement with the end users, selection and development of the product, evaluation, and, finally, modification and edits based on user feedback. Although these marketing students may not have been aware, they were employing a strategy of rapid prototyping—a common framework with accelerated development cycles and continuous feedback loops.

As this public-private partnership matures, the students will be provided a formalized design framework using a series of process and control steps that they will complete along with the patron. In addition, the learning designers will likely take a much more active role using assurance and quality checks throughout the project life cycle to ensure the outcomes are being met. A strong partnership with the department provided an opportunity to enhance the assignment by engaging sound learning design methodologies. We expect to see more of these applied learning opportunities as faculty begin to rethink their courses using emergent technologies.

Robert Gibson is Director of Learning Technologies at Emporia State University.

Anna Catterson is Educational Technology Coordinator at Emporia State University.