WueDive Team Embraces Virtual Reality
19 Aug 2022
WueDive Team Meets Virtually with ViLeArn
The WueDive team met recently at the teaching clinic of the University Hospital to experience first hand the power of collaborative virtual learning spaces. The team joined together in a fully immersive classroom using the ViLeArn software by Reality Stack, developed at Chair IX Human-Computer-Interaction. The colleagues first met together for an introduction to the software, and then moved to individual rooms. Equipped with HP Reverb Head Mounted Displays, they came together in a virtual seminar room, embodied as self-designed virtual avatars. Colleagues could move freely, speak, interact and share learning content with each other. ViLeArn simulates learning environments, combining established principles of teaching and learning in the classroom with the technical possibilities of virtual and augmented reality. This facilitates an interactive and collaborative digital learning experience that promotes different skills and increases learning success. Various tools are available to the seminar leader to design the learning path. Factual knowledge can be presented, interactive tasks can be initiated and group work can be spatially separated, similar to traditional face-to-face classes. The participants access virtual tablets, which they can use to work together on learning content. Presentations, links and images can be shared with everyone present on a central screen in the virtual classroom.
ViLeArn in WueDive Pilot Projects
WueDive strives to promote the use and further development of pedagogical and didactic formats, concepts, methods and tools for digital teaching. The ViLeArn software is used in this regard in the WueDive pilot project Complex Systems: Climate Change and the Effects on Health at the teaching clinic of the University Hospital Würzburg. With the help of Samantha Monty from the Chair IX, Dr. Oyudari Vova uses virtual learning environments to teach medical students the health effects of climate change via problem-oriented learning. Students become prepared for the challenges of their professions by independently exploring new learning environments and solving complex cases. In connection with an interactive virtual environment, the method of problem-oriented learning can be made even more diverse and detached from spatial dependencies. As a WueDive VR developer, Samantha is responsible for the further development of the functional scope of ViLeArn and on the expansion of the application for new usage scenarios.
