THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: How about peeling and examining various layers of the earth such as its core, mantle and crust with the ease of peeling an orange? That’s how interesting a geography chapter has turned into for students of Government Girls’ HSS, Malayinkeezh, in the state capital. Thanks to the newly set-up virtual reality (VR) lab in the school, learning has become a totally immersive affair, giving students hands-on experiences that are difficult to explain or replicate in real life.
Besides geography, students from Classes VIII to XII in the school can now experience as many as 65 concepts in VR mode for subjects such as physics, chemistry, biology and mathematics. Though intended for students from the secondary level, children in lower classes also make a beeline to the school’s VR lab to experience the varied learning environment.
The Girls’ HSS at Malayinkeezh is among the five schools in the state to boast a VR lab that was set up under the Strengthening Teaching-Learning and Results for States (STARS) project implemented by Samagra Shiksha Kerala (SSK). The setting up of VR labs in government schools comes at a time when even leading private schools are yet to introduce the facility as part of classroom learning. “We are now planning to introduce 120 VR labs in select schools across the state in the second phase,” a senior SSK official told TNIE.
While helping this correspondent wear the VR glasses and wield the controller, Saina N F, a Class X student of the school, narrates how her learning experience has been totally transformed. “It’s a different world altogether where each concept in the textbook unfolds in front of our eyes with the corresponding sights and sounds. The feature to touch and move the objects that we see around us adds to the fun,” she says.
School headmistress Leena CH said the VR lab is also a major draw for students in schools located nearby. “There has been a steady stream of visitors to our VR lab from neighbouring schools,” she says with pride.
Nikhila Nair R S, the teacher in-charge of the VR lab, explains that attentiveness and retention of children have improved drastically with the setting up of the facility.
“Though we have only 16 devices, the VR experience of each student can be cast on an external screen using an app, facilitating its viewing by more students. Currently we are using Meta Quest devices and more learning modules are being added,” Nikhila said.
She was given training by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), that is providing the technical support for the project.
The ‘user stories’ for students were prepared by a team of school and college teachers and research officers of the State Council for Educational Research and Training (SCERT), under the overall supervision of state-level officials of SSK.
These user stories were turned into virtual experiences and set into the VR devices by a team of 12 engineers of C-DAC. The content is periodically examined by an expert committee that suggests various improvements.
Orientation classes are provided by C-DAC to teachers and students on using the VR devices.