Tweaker teacher gives chemistry lesson in virtual reality

Tweaker and chemistry teacher CaptainMaus has found a way to teach his students online from home in a more active and versatile way. He uses a VR headset for his lessons.

CaptainMaus, in daily life Maurits Roselaar, teaches secondary school students at the Jac P. Thijsse College in Castricum. He was already responsible for the virtual reality headset at his school and the desire to use it for teaching gained momentum due to the corona crisis, he says. “It’s an innovative school that is open to new things and use of technology. I already had the Oculus Rift S here and started looking at the possibilities.”

Roselaar says she was inspired by a video of an American math teacher who takes notes on windows at the beginning of the VR game Half-Life: Alyx. “The first feedback I got was that teaching in that way was great, but that the images moved a lot. I then started looking for a suitable whiteboard tool for VR and came across Dry Erase on Steam.”

This program offers Roselaar the possibility to use an ‘infinitely large blackboard’ in the virtual space. In addition, he can import text documents, images and other files and use the controllers to easily select markers in different colors to take notes and write out formulas. Students see a flat view of Roselaar’s image within Microsoft Teams, via the spectator view of Dry Erase.

He gives ten lessons a week and according to the tweaker the reactions of students are very positive. “Students don’t have the idea that you are static in your pajamas behind your screen, but they see your hand movements after, for example, a question to point out things. For me as a teacher it feels more natural to teach. I am really writing, just like in a lesson. I can also easily prepare my lessons.” According to the teacher, all this results in better interaction from the students: “they have less of the feeling that there is a digital barrier.”

Roselaar expects to be able to use the teaching method for a longer period of time. According to him, many colleagues also want to switch and he foresees a great future for VR in education, but one problem is that many VR headsets are currently sold out. “It’s nice that the combination of VR headset and whiteboard tool is quite open and not a closed environment, as you sometimes see in education. As a school you don’t want to run into high licensing costs.”