How Teachers In Poland Used Half-Life: Alyx And VR For Remote Teaching During A Global Pandemic
I’m watching a video from Szkoła 33, a high school in the city of Poznań, western Poland. The camera tracks through the school, taking in rows of empty tables, discarded toys, and unused equipment. Eventually, it fades out to a teacher, who welcomes the children to the lesson.
Then the footage cuts away completely, and Half-Life: Alyxbegins.
Dystopia might be correct – but in fact, the game was used by Szkoła 33 to conduct lessons for children in lockdown. A total of six VR sessions in Half-Life: Alyx were made by the school to teach various subjects, with many of the videos lasting over two hours. The lessons combined live and pre-recorded material, and were uploaded to Facebook, Twitch, and YouTube
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“The pandemic had just started back then, the schools were closed, and we wanted to interest our students in the classes somehow. We also hoped that it would help them with the uncomfortable situation everyone found themselves in – those first few weeks were not easy for kids, being on lockdown in their homes and not able to roam freely.” ...
The teachers cooperated with local media company OFFshot to make the Half-Life: Alyx VR classes. ...
Equipped with an HTC VIVE Pro and three cameras, the school recorded languages, math, and science lessons, with the teachers using pens inside the game to draw diagrams, as well as teaching children vocabulary in a virtual kitchen. ...
There’s an experimental feel to the videos, and a small picture-in-picture in the corner of the screen shows exactly what’s happening in the real world: the teacher – clad in a VR headset – tiptoeing around and drawing into the empty space of the real-life classroom. ...
“We believe the students liked them,” she says. “From younger kids to teenagers, we have seen all of the age groups of our school gather together on Facebook to watch them. Going by the emojis they shared and reacted with, as well as the comments, they enjoyed them very much.”
See the full story here: https://uploadvr.com/teachers-poland-half-life-alyx-vr/?fbclid=IwAR2-j8zmbjtUloGDavoS-wX0NWVrq-2p1_b4-zvomOvQK_gyI9Np2OZOPog