Just under a year ago I was invited with my good friend Chris Long to test out a multi-user VR platform called Somnium Space. Chris and I were joined by Somnium’s founder and CEO Artur Sychov who gave us a tour of the current build and it quickly became clear that this was quite a unique take on the social VR experience. Artur’s a great guy and you can tell that he has genuine passion for what he does. There are no separate spaces/rooms/worlds in Somnium Space, instead it is

This week marks the 20th anniversary of one of my favourite films ever, The Matrix. Directed by the (then) Wachowski Brothers and starring Keanu Reeves, Carrie Anne Moss, Laurence Fishburne and Hugo Weaving, the movie was a sensation grossing more than $460 million. It was a cyberpunk action movie with a philosophical soul (something that ended up strangling the subsequent sequels somewhat) and a killer premise – what if everything you thought was real was actually a virtual

Without a doubt one of the most stunning educational virtual reality experiences is Google Earth VR. This free app is a great way to contextualise geographical learning by letting students teleport around the globe and explore our planet first hand. You can be stood next to the Christ The Redeemer statue in Brazil as the sun sets then with the click of a button be flying along the River Thames. You can stand atop the Eiffel Tower and observe the layout of Paris. You can stand

Over the last couple of years, many educators have told me that they really want to start integrating VR in their schools and institutions but have found it difficult. Often this is due to management and school leaders vetoing project proposals. I‘ve spoken and written about the “Why” of VR in education many times, highlighting the benefits that virtual reality offers in the modern classroom, but for a presentation at GESS Dubai last month, I decided to flip my focus and try

Over the last 20 months I’ve had the privilege of welcoming some amazing guests onto #CPDinVR. From educational pioneers like Jaime Donally and the VR Podcast crew to rockstar developers like Tony “Skarred Ghost” Vitillo and Cosmo Scharf to some of immersive tech’s heavy-hitters like John Westra and Charlie Fink. I even managed to convince HTC Vive President Alvin Wang Graylin to deliver the opening keynote presentation for my first anniversary event. I am eternally grateful

Last month was an incredibly busy one for me, building towards my biggest role ever at the GESS Dubai conference where I coordinated and then hosted a VR Experience stage for 3 days straight. As I was so focused on prep for this huge event I didn't manage to turn around my monthly column for VR Focus in February. To make up for this I decided to offer them an article which I had intended on publishing here on my own site. The article ties in with the one presentation I delive

When it comes to locating educational content for a PC-powered VR headset like a Vive, Rift or WMR, it can be a little tricky for three main reasons: 1. There are multiple app stores to find content and some of the content can only be found in certain app stores. 2. Not all the stores have an easy to find Education section. 3. Some content which would be great in the classroom isn’t actually tagged as educational. As such I decided to scour the three main stores – Steam, Vive

My monthly column for the brilliant VR Focus continued in January with an article looking at a special subset of VR art apps that allow you to actually step inside works of art. The piece includes a video from my newly refurbished YouTube channel showing three such apps in action as well as some details about other apps of this kind. To read the full article on the VR Focus site, click here. To access the archive of my articles for VR Focus click here. #VR #Vive #Art

A year ago I co-authored The Periodic Table of AR and VR iOS Apps with my good friend and serial innovator Mark “ICT Evangelist” Anderson. Part of Mark’s expanding line-up of educational Periodic Tables resources, it was launched at BETT London 2018 by Mark. I then delivered my own presentation on the project inside Engage as a part of the #CPDinVR events. This free resource was incredibly well-received and was shared thousands of times across social media. You can find my or

My December column for VR Focus was a top ten list of educational VR apps for 2018. As opposed to my list from 2017 (which you can read here) I chose not to just focus on Steam-based apps this year and threw in a couple of VR apps from other platforms. To read the article on the VR Focus website, click on the logo below. To access the archives of all my articles for VR Focus, click here. #VR #VRFocus #Vive #WMR

As a fresh challenge for 2019, I’ve decided to renovate my YouTube channel and start producing original content on there rather than just use it as a receptacle for videos I embed here on the website. As such it will become another source of AR/VR in Education content from me and I plan to put out app demos and guides as well as unboxings and a lot more as the year rolls on. I started by organising the content I already had on there into playlists and adding proper header gra

One of the teachers I work with recently asked me to look for some mobile AR/VR content on the theme of Natural Disasters which her students were studying after the Christmas break. My first port of call was YouTube where I curated an appropriate set of 360 videos about volcanoes, tornadoes and other natural disasters. This has become a go-to move for me as I can navigate the content quickly and produce staff a sheet of QR codes that students can scan to directly access the

I’ve been working on a follow-up piece to my article looking at the potential for the Vive Focus in education in the last week and in the process I came to realise that some new apps have launched for HTC’s standalone VR headset. One of these is the remarkable Kremer Collection VR Museum which I actually included in my Top 10 VR Education Apps of 2018 piece for VR Focus. This virtual gallery collates more than seventy works of art from Dutch masters like Rembrandt and was fan

Whilst out Christmas shopping today I picked up the Virtual Explorer Antopia Adventure set in a discount toy store. At just 39aed (that’s about $10 or £8) it seemed like quite a bargain. Several companies have released this sort of VR learning set and often they are quite pricey for what they actually contain but at this price I was happy to pick one up and see what it had to offer. My youngest daughter and I cracked the set open when we got home and filmed a little impromptu

My guest posts at VR Focus continued in November with a piece aimed at VR developers. I often find that VR content aimed at the classroom hasn't been tailored as carefully as it should be for use with children. This piece breaks down 10 things I would reccomend that developers consider in order to ensure that their VRedu experiences can be harnessed successfully and make an impact in classrooms. Click here to read the full article on the VR Focus site. On a side note, some of

I think it’s pretty obvious that I’m a Vive guy when it comes to VR. I have a section dedicated to Vive in Education here on VirtualiTeach, I always use my Vive when I’m hosting #CPDinVR and it’s my go-to headset for testing all new 6DOF experiences. That being said, earlier this year I reviewed how we had deployed and were using our 3 Vives at JESS Dubai and decided to make a change. We have three schools at JESS – two primary schools (for students aged 3-11) and one seconda

Just over a year and a half ago I set up this website with two specific goals - 1. To share ideas and examples of best practice in the use of AR and VR in education 2. To connect with like-minded educators and pioneers working with immersive technologies. As I sit here writing the site’s 100th article, I think it’s safe to say that I’m doing pretty well with regards to my first goal but I never dreamed that I would build such an amazing network of colleagues, collaborators an

One of the most common questions I am asked is to do with student age and VR headsets. People want a magic number for kids to start using VR. Obviously there isn’t one so common sense prevails with regards to VR as it does with all technology – it is less about when you use it and more about how carefully you use it. Sticking a 3 year old in an Oculus Rift for 20 minutes would be bonkers but if you apply logic and pedagogy in equal measures, you can deliver some truly magical

September sees the launch of a series of guest articles I am writing for VR Focus. I'll be writing one article a month for them and the content will be fresh features not found here on VirtualiTeach. As such I'll add a link to each one so that regular readers here don't miss out! October's article is the second part of my two-part feature looking at high-end VR integration in schools. This part explores practical ways to integrate limited numbers of headsets in ways that can

Language learning is one area of education that is genuinely being transformed through the implementation of immersive technologies. Interactive and engaging, AR and VR also benefit from breaking down geographical borders and providing access to native speakers to facilitate experiential learning for the modern student. Both AR and VR have the potential to redefine the way students can learn languages in a variety of ways. Let’s take a look at five different ways that these t