NORDIC REBELS DISCUSSION PAPER I: USING VR TO ELEVATE BLENDED LEARNING
NORDIC REBELS
Discussion Paper 1: Using VR to Elevate Blended Learning Miikka J. Lehtonen Adithya Varadarajan Johannes Sรถderstrรถm with foreword by
Tero Kuittinen
Layout: JiaYing Chew Visual design: Parvati Pillai Photo credits: the authors
Executive Summary This paper details the Nordic Rebels use and evolution of virtual reality (VR) in blended, multidisciplinary teaching. It charts the journey so far, highlighting specific elements from the implementation in the course including setup, student experiences and potential issues if implemented elsewhere. Finally, this paper also presents a vision of using VR to enable contextual problem solving in a manner that can speed up and enhance collaboration and creation of solutions which the Nordic Rebels team hopes to use in subsequent years of the course as a test bed, both for students to experience VR prototyping and to enhance the learning and problem solving process.
Foreword by Tero Kuittinen Virtual Reality technologies have made tremendous advances during the last few years, and more and more companies are exploring how to utilize VR and AR in their marketing campaigns. Higher education is now showing concrete signs of committing resources to XR, but apart from seemingly obvious applications in biology, engineering, and medical sciences, we still haven’t come across many initiatives looking at how VR will become an essential skill to master for future generations entering the workforce. That was one of the reasons why I was thrilled to read this Nordic Rebels discussion paper that focuses on VR solutions in the context of multidisciplinary collaboration. I have seen during 2018 how several educational institutions in the New York region are beginning to explore ways to incorporate XR platforms into various disciplines - finding ways to coordinate these initiatives will be a major challenge in the near term. Virtual Reality will disrupt our ways of working in the future, and initiatives like the one described in this report will certainly play a pivotal part in creating a global standard on what higher education institutions should do to teach their students about the possibilities of XR. Tero Kuittinen, Senior Advisor to Arilyn
IDBM & Nordic Rebels: a brief introduction Nordic Rebels is an open access movement focusing on creating immersive learning spaces and experiences based on Nordic values: openness and trust, storytelling and cuisine, design, and pedagogical competencies. Since September 2017, Nordic Rebels have organized the IDBM Challenge course and this has meant bringing together students from Aalto University and different universities located in Copenhagen, Denmark. http://www.nordicrebels.com
International Design Business Management (IDBM) is a multidisciplinary graduate program in Aalto University bringing together design, business, and technology. IDBM started as a minor program in 1995, roughly 15 years prior to Aalto University’s formal establishment, and as such it is one of the oldest multidisciplinary graduate programs in the world. Majority of teaching and learning in IDBM weaves together theory and practice; that is, students often work in multidisciplinary teams to study how design can bring societal and organizational value. http://www.idbm.fi
Introduction: VR roadmap in IDBM Challenge so far Our initial idea behind exploring the use of VR in multidisciplinary course settings was to take the university where the students are. Reasoning behind this guiding vision was to see how we could blur the boundary between the classroom and the surrounding society: while we are not questioning the importance and relevance of strictly confined learning spaces, we wanted to figure out whether complementary learning approaches could be designed to support our students’ learning. More specifically, as the learning outcomes of the IDBM Challenge course focus on multidisciplinary teamwork, learning about this topic is best achieved by combining theory and practice. In more practical terms, IDBM Challenge consists of: • • • •
A real-life challenge the students work on in multidisciplinary teams As a cohort, organizing a public event showcasing the teams’ solutions and challenges Workshops and methods bridging theory and practice A series of video and podcast episodes that have been organized so that they support the learning process
In short, the students are taken through what could be referred to as one take on the design process. We are not saying this is the only way to teach design, but a certain level of structure is crucial when teaching design to students with little or no previous experience or knowledge on the topic. For design students, this course provides them with an opportunity to share their knowledge with their peers as well as helps them in articulating their design expertise. More information on the course: IDBM Challenge 2017 - behind the scenes IDBM Challenge 2017 - manual
Case 1: IDBM Challenge 2017 During the first iteration of this course, the user interface we created for the course website was built on a relatively static VR experience. Website (http://www. idbmchallenge.com) was and is open for everyone, and we were utilizing visuals to help visitors navigate the content. Moreover, the VR environment itself had three iterations: • •
First layout contained no participants, only an empty space Second version portrayed participants from Aalto University
•
Third iteration portrayed both Aalto University students and students from universities in Copenhagen
Logic here was to utilize static VR images to tell a temporal story: initial image highlighted the notion that as facilitators of the course, we only created a skeleton structure for the students. With the second iteration of the image, we wanted to emphasize that it is the students who are the superstars of this course. Without them, the course simply would not exist.
Figure 1. A student trying out the VR interface during an open test conducted in Aalto University’s Learning Centre
Figure 2. Landing page for the IDBM Challenge course website
Figure 3. One of the rooms on the website showcasing the video episodes
Figure 4. One of the rooms containing an instructional video for one of the methods devised for the course as well as a link to download the method
The site itself was viewable in both 2D and WebVR formats: although we did not expect the students to visit the site wearing VR headsets, we emphasized the interaction on the site as the main justification for utilizing
VR/360 solutions in such manner. Guiding principles for this decision were playfulness, narrative, and visual user interface.
Case 2: IDBM Challenge 2018 For the 2018 iteration of the course, we decided to shift our VR attention to collaboration and prototyping. Reason behind this was based on our data and insights from the 2017 edition of the course, so we wanted to explore how VR solutions could help in achieving common ground between our teams in Helsinki and Copenhagen. In terms of organizing the final event, teams in Helsinki were in an advantageous position in a sense that they had better access to visiting the final venue in person, whereas the Copenhagen teams were limited to insights provided by their peers in Helsinki. Although this did not create conflicts between the teams, we identified this as a clear area that needed improvement. For Copenhagen teams, using VR spaces to model the final event venue would provide them with more cues on how the space looks
like and what can be designed there, whereas for teams in Helsinki, VR space was designed to help them better communicate and collaborate with their peers in Copenhagen. Moreover, for all teams this VR space was intended to be used as a 24/7 access to the venue: although the venue itself was located in Helsinki, the teams were not able to access it anytime they wanted as companies and freelancers were working there during the day and other events were also being organized there. Thus, the question guiding our VR development for the 2018 edition of the course was “how VR collaboration could benefit the design process by creating a common ground for geographically dispersed teams?�.
Figure 5. Two students engaging in prototyping in the VR space
Figure 6. One of the authors trying out a demo of the course’s VR solution
Figure 7. A screenshot from a video illustrating the VR solution’s functionality
As an idea, VR collaboration for educational purposes has the potential to tackle at least two issues: first, it enables collaboration across different geographical locations and second, provides the students with a taste of skills that will most likely become crucial in the next few years to come. On the execution level, however, our VR experiment was not a tremendous success, but more importantly we understood what it takes to integrate VR solutions into course spaces. In more concrete terms, we realized infrastructure, mindset, and service journey to be critical when it comes to using VR in multidisciplinary courses. Below, we will further elaborate on our journey so far by offering one potential roadmap for effectively integrating VR solutions and tools into learning activities.
VR roadmap for Higher Education Institutions Above, we have described our VR journey so far, and here our aim is to share some of our insights so far in implementing VR solutions into multidisciplinary teaching environments. At this point it has to be pointed out that not everyone is expected to rigorously follow this path: instead, by fleshing out one potential roadmap can help in raising awareness on what is actually needed for seamlessly integrating VR into multidisciplinary learning environments. To begin with, implementing different technologies into course spaces should never be done just for the sake of it, but instead focus should be on exploring methods that help in best conveying the intended learning outcomes. Whether it is about multidisciplinary teamwork, accounting, astrophysics, or design thinking, the main point is to articulate the essence of the course, and from there map out all the technologies needed to deliver engaging and inspiring learning experiences.
First Step: VR for the Passive Viewer When we set up our VR space during the 2017 iteration of the course, we had limited resources at our disposal both in terms of time and money to create something groundbreaking. In fact, we were not sure whether the VR solution we had in mind would work, but perhaps we were crazy enough with adequate institutional support to try out new things without compromising our students’ learning experience. Thus, we asked ourselves, how could we utilize VR to showcase the course is nothing without the students’ contributions and commitment. With traditional video and pictures we are always leaving something out of the picture, whereas VR holds nothing back. Everything is laid out there for the viewer to see, which was exactly the reason we were so fascinated by it.
Figure 8. A screenshot of the virtual space without the participants.
Figure 9. Layout of all the rooms in the first VR space.
During this three week course we wanted to focus on the website that would bring together all the course components. Video episodes, podcasts, link to the collaboration space - everything was accessible from the website, and the different VR spaces highlighted different aspects of the course. All the video episodes, for example, were laid out in a VR space that we created from a theater where we had one of our
sessions during the course: with this, we wanted to highlight the spaces where the course takes place. What is more, the main VR page was changed twice to reflect changes in the course: first week the space was devoid of people, second week it showcased our participants from Aalto University, and third week brought together participants from Aalto University and Copenhagen, Denmark.
Second Step: From Passive Agents to Active Collaborators When planning out the elements of the 2018 edition of the course, we knew we wanted to build on the passive VR aspects of 2017 but with more active collaboration. As mentioned previously, we wanted to bring teams that were geographically distributed between Helsinki and Copenhagen and give them the ability to work together with the right kind of tools.
Instead, we focused on the immediate needs and asked ourselves - what is the one thing that these students need to collaborate on that would benefit from having a virtual VR experience. Thus the context selected for the sake of the course was the final event where the students would be showcasing their work on their projects at the venue, Helsinki Games Factory.
For this, we collaborated with Fake Production, a Helsinkibased company developing multi-user solutions for VR environments, that helped us in creating a VR space that suited our needs. During one of the demo sessions with Fake Production it became clear that this was synergistically aligned with the vision we had to enable greater collaboration between our teams in Copenhagen and the ones in Helsinki and could even be used to figure things out within a context.
Teams in Helsinki had access to the venue and could relay information about it to their peers in Copenhagen, but this situation posed a range of challenges that extended beyond the fact that teams were remote - including the possibility of unconsciously filtering information with their own biases and plans in mind and as such it would have been more difficult to get a fresh perspective for those who did not have the context of the space.
Given the limited time and budget, we knew that crafting many diverse problem solving contexts would not be possible for this iteration of the course.
What we intended was for the VR to enable them to plan the event in a virtual recreation of the same space, one that they could revisit whenever they needed to be sure if an idea would work in this given context.
At the start of the experiment, from a pedagogical perspective, we believed that VR prototyping would be an essential skill in the years going forward and wanted to give the students a taste of what they could encounter in the future. A head start on emerging tech would prove beneficial for
future careers and it is possible for future careers and it is possible that this drove the initial interest in being involved with the VR experiment as we had more students show up for the first demo than the one representative per team that we had expected.
Figure 10. Students using one of the VR stations with HTC Vive headsets
We were expecting the students to utilize the platform for communication combined with active note-taking and planning on what they could do within the space. We hoped that the platform would also add a new dimension to their overall learning process. In the end, what we ended up getting was quite a bit more - a glimpse into the possibilities of VR-based collaboration and the potential for use in a variety of immersive scenarios.
It was remarkable to see how quickly students picked up the basic VR tools, but what surprised us even more was how they leveraged the basic drawing and note taking tools to actually sketch out a complete virtual layout of the event in that space, from placement of different elements, to the location of the presenters and even mapping the flow of attendees.
Figure 11. Virtual recreation of Games Factory Stage with students planning the event layout
They quickly divided the space among themselves to discuss and plan several components and aspects of the event. They mapped out user journeys, visualized service elements and placed virtual markers to assign where things would go (eg. the presenter screen or the drinks counter). They even went to the extent of sketching out placeholders for chairs for attendees to organize the layout and added a virtual sketch version of one of the instructors to indicate where the presenters would be. They had a story in mind that they wanted the space to convey and the use of VR helped clarify that story, both in its formulation and execution. It was also insightful to see how they were exercising their empathic abilities and putting themselves in the shoes of the
audience while moving around the virtual space and taking decisions based on that for where objects should be placed. Overall, they leveraged the contextual immersion to rapidly sketch and envisage solutions within that space and since they were actively discussing and collaborating, the process went by much faster than it would have if they were simply discussing this based on a couple of visits and images. In addition, it was clear they all enjoyed every minute of it and one student summed it up with “What an experience! Painting flying tables and chairs in the VR event space. This was my first time trying VR and it was so much fun!�. However, as we mentioned earlier in this paper, in general our VR experiment was not successful,
which is one of the reasons behind this paper. We wanted to document our process so that others would find it easier to start experimenting with VR in classrooms.
Third Step: Boosting Creative Aspirations in VR Settings Currently, one of the great challenges of tackling wicked problems in different parts of the world is context. How does a design team, particularly a geographically distributed design team, work towards fixing such a problem without spending excessive amounts of money and a huge carbon footprint to immerse themselves physically in that context? This is where we believe VR comes into play and what we hope to implement in future iterations of our course. Presently, there are sufficient 360 capture technologies to capture imagery to significant and immersive detail. It is an expensive proposition for LIDAR based depth mapping in spaces, but as mobile based AR platforms like ARKit and ARCore continue to evolve rapidly, this is only going to get cheaper. What this means is, at a point in the near future, we will be able to capture the context of a place to a level of
detail where the VR experience replicates that context and allows for an understanding of the nuances. This allows for a team, whether all in one location or remote, to immerse itself in a virtual presence of this location. In addition, with built in features like embedded live video streams, video calling and more, the team can carry out a contextual exploration remotely and this context is one that can be revisited constantly. Imagine trying to design an interactive community space and being able to do so without having to constantly visit the context. Imagine being able to communicate with experts and potential users alike within this virtual context while the team is able to actively iterate on their solutions and visualize it within the frame of this context. The contextual problem solving within the realms of Helsinki Games Factory was clearly just the beginning. Where our initial vision was about taking the university to where the students are, it is entirely possible that our current, VR enabled, approach can transcend the university setting and go into problem solving. So the new vision could probably be articulated as “taking the tools and the problem solvers virtually to where the problems are�.
VR Checklist for Educators and Learners In earlier parts of this paper we have hinted at some of the most pressing issues that need to be solved when creating VR solutions for learning activities, and below we discuss them in more detail. Infrastructure Perhaps the most pressing bottleneck in using VR in course spaces is infrastructure: namely, having adequate amount of VR headsets and accompanying computers. Standalone VR headsets are becoming more and more sophisticated, but for VR collaboration the technology is not there yet. During the IDBM Challenge course, we came to realize it is not an easy task to locate enough functioning VR sets without resorting to renting them from external parties. With this in mind, first step in analyzing your organization’s VR capabilities is to figure out how many VR headsets there are at your disposal. Once located, next step would be to figure out whether there are enough user accounts for various VR platforms.
In our case, we had to create new accounts for the students as we did not want to compromise their data privacy (see more below). At this stage, the situation resembles that of a catch-22: on the one hand, organizations find it difficult to invest in multiple VR headsets and accompanying computers, and on the other hand, companies developing VR solutions are engaging in an uphill battle as there are not enough users with access to hardware. In a way, then, the VR industry does seem to be in a state where it needs that one killer application, but at the same time we as educators can also create compelling use case examples so that higher education institutions can become aware of the potential VR has. For many future graduates, VR competencies will become crucial to master, which is why VR plays a crucial role in designing learning experiences for future. One advantage that our test platform from Fake Production offered was an “observer collaborator� mode, where one
could use a standard laptop, even one with integrated graphics, and move around within the space and communicate with others. The only limitation was that this mode did not have access to the tools for drawing. This could be one possible future approach in situations where investing in multiple VR headsets is an expensive proposition. However with the Oculus Go being priced at around $200 and phone based Daydream VR enabled for even cheaper, in the long run we anticipate building this infrastructure to be a much more affordable affair. Mindset For students to start exploring multi-user VR collaboration solutions, no prior knowledge is required as the basic functionalities are relatively easy to master. As discussed before, collaboration in VR environments brings together ideas created offline, and in most cases visual accuracy is not as important as achieving common ground amongst participants coming from different geographical locations. However, when talking about creating something in VR environments, we believe this to
require some prior training as dealing with new technologies can always create anxieties when things do not go as planned. Thus, having the right mindset and adequate amount of headspace to explore VR collaboration are pivotal, and as such instructors or facilitators should keep this in mind when designing their course / workshop contents. Taking a step back, instructors and facilitators should try out the VR solutions in question before the course so they would gain first-hand experience on using those tools. At least for us, this was a huge learning experience as we got to experience the service journey from our students’ point of view. Realizing this enabled us to eliminate some of the hurdles and pain points along the way, as well as to understand how it would feel if the technology was causing anxiety due to a steep learning curve. To conclude, it cannot be taken for granted that everyone is openly willing to try out new technologies, which is why instructors play a pivotal role in creating a space where the students feel encouraged and supported to test multi-user VR collaboration as this will most likely become a crucial skill for them to master in the future.
Data Privacy
Service Journey
One of the challenges we initially faced was around data privacy, as the platform selected had a requirement that every user authenticate themselves using standard OAuth that relies on connection to social media platforms. While this was not an issue under GDPR since the platforms themselves were compliant, we did not want to have the students signing up with their personal accounts. To circumvent this, we created multiple test email accounts with Google, one for each device in use, so that students could simply pick one and jump into the VR space after picking a nickname that would be displayed next to their virtual characters.
As has been mentioned previously, designing a smooth service journey for trying out multi-user VR collaboration is essential as there are numerous steps along the journey that can cause unnecessary anxiety and ultimately resistance towards the tool. Based on our experiences, visualizing the service journey prior to the course helps in understanding potential pain points and altering the design of the service so that the students have to invest minimum amount of effort to accessing the tool. For example, in our first service journey iteration the students were expected to log in to the tool by using their Gmail account (or create an account if they did not have one), then activate the VR headset by logging in to Steam (again, create an account if they did not have one), and then finally accessing the tool.
This issue is also connected to the service journey aspect (see below) as it became crucial during our exploration that the students were looking for a service that was both easy to use and trustworthy. Asking students to use their private email or social media accounts is something that should be carefully considered, which is why we recommend providing generic accounts that are, for example, connected to specific computers rather than users.
To streamline this process, we created generic Gmail and Steam accounts for the students so they could access the tool as smoothly as possible and without compromising their sense of privacy. Reasoning behind this service journey alteration is thus related to both data privacy and headspace: the easier it is for the students to start using the tool,
the less anxious they will be, and this ultimately leads to better collaboration. While in reality this logic does not apply to everyone, at least it ensures that
through alternative design solutions we can create learning environments that have the potential to boost rather than hinder learning.
Conclusion As previously stated, our VR experiment was not successful, but this is one of the driving reasons behind this paper. We wanted to document our process so that others would find it easier to start experimenting with VR in classrooms and know what to expect when doing the same thing. We hope our learning and findings, which in turn provided the foundation for our process and checklist documentation, push the starting point for future experiments in classroom VR a bit closer to smooth and seamless execution and eventually, a whole new world of blended learning and problem solving. We believe the VR Checklist described above helps instructors and facilitators in realistically considering VR applications in their learning environments.
While VR solutions can be applied to diverse disciplinary settings, it should be kept in mind that technology’s role is to enhance and support the overall story, not to lead it. That is to say, technology should not be brought into the classroom just for the sake of it, but through meaningful design, and the VR Checklist presented in this paper helps in creating the foundations for such endeavors.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons AttributionNoDerivatives 4.0 International License.