The InstaVR team had the pleasure of attending, exhibiting, and speaking at the Future of Education Technology Conference (FETC) last week in Orlando, Florida. Educators are intrigued and excited by the opportunity that VR provides for new, interactive learning experiences. They recognize the value in supplementing books and class lectures with a technology that can figuratively transport you outside of the classroom.
InstaVR’s Andrew Woodberry and Joshua Nava give a presentation on VR in the Classroom.
We also had a lot of time to speak with teachers and administrators about what they’d like to see in virtual reality. Many had heard of the technology, and roughly half had experienced it before. But what interested us the most was the diversity of use cases that we encountered.
An admissions director, for instance, wanted to utilize his Ricoh Theta S to create a virtual tour of his private K-12 school to attract more international students. A STEM technology lead wanted to add InstaVR to his curriculum so students could create their first mobile apps. And the president of an organization dedicated to training ministry professionals wanted an innovative and interactive way to teach members located remotely throughout the world.
A booth visitor testing out an InstaVR-created app on the Samsung Gear VR headset.
One of the best parts of the show was sharing the success story of our customer, German University in Cairo. Students in the Architecture and Urban Design Program there put together a remarkable VR Experience using nothing more than a 360 camera, InstaVR, and an internet connection. The app, published to Google Cardboard and other HMDs, allowed users to take a virtual tour of Historical Cairo.
Professor Maha El Gewely said of using our solution: : “InstaVR is just a great and easy to learn tool. We have used InstaVR in our ‘Historical Cairo Goes VR’ project, combining small 360 tours in historical buildings to make a walk through Fatimid Cairo. Using InstaVR just made our project way better.”
German University in Cairo >> Hyper Reality Course >> Student Work
We also used FETC to announce our new Academic Licensing Program. This gives schools the opportunity to buy bulk licenses of InstaVR at significantly discounted prices. Classrooms can now have students creating and publishing their own apps, learning as they engage in the VR creation process. These apps are the exact same as experienced by InstaVR Pro customers — publishable both in-house and through iTunes and Google Play Stores.
We’re looking forward to a lot of exciting developments in VR in the Classroom this year!
