#  The Virtual Classroom 

 





April 14, 2020

 

 

 ***Young Joo Lee** is the Harvard College Fellow in Media Practice in Theater, Dance & Media. This semester, she is teaching TDM167L: Digital Media Performance. Her students are using Virtual Reality in both their course meetings and their course projects.*

 In the beginning of the semester, the class explored the idea of making Virtual Reality and an online platform a performance space. We watched examples of artists' works that use live-streaming and websites as a performance platform. We also discussed how the experience of live-ness, presence, and interactivity is different when it is mediated by technology.

 We visited the Immersive Visualization Lab at the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences to test the networked multiplayer Virtual Reality chatroom. Similar to the text-based chatrooms, you can add your contacts as friends and meet in a specific "world." One can also create a customized "world" to upload and invite friends there. We had a workshop to create our own world using Unity 3D game software. Embodying an avatar increased the sense of realness in this networked environment.

 ![Animated figures run over a bridge in a Virtual Reality platform while students' usernames float over their animated avatars](/sites/g/files/omnuum756/files/artshumanities/files/vr_chat.png)

 

 The week before spring break, we went to Cabot Science Library to borrow Oculus Quest VR headsets for each student. Thanks to the support of the Cabot Science Library Tech Loan office and Theater, Dance & Media, all students managed to take these headsets home in time for the rest of the semester.

 For the first remote class, we checked in via Zoom to discuss how to migrate the ideas for the final project to an online platform. Since artists were always in the forefront to embrace and reflect changes in society, even in the moments of uncertainty, we decided that some students can make a work about this new situation instead of sticking to the previous ideas. One of the students pitched to make the experience of grocery shopping into an interactive game, and another one proposed to create a virtual room that connects the pandemics throughout human history and their current quarantined environment.

 ![A Zoom class meets with some students wearing VR headsets and the screen showing the text of a play they are reading together](/sites/g/files/omnuum756/files/artshumanities/files/tdm167l_screenshot_april_2020.jpg)

 

 We also all logged onto VR Chat to meet virtually to explore some of the worlds, to discuss how human relationships and interaction changes in this virtual environment. We truly shared the sense of being together in a place, constantly looking for each other, and getting interrupted by other visitors around the world. I personally saw a big potential for a virtual classroom, especially for those that require collaboration and interaction.

 I hope this story inspires some people to explore live-streaming and VR networked environments to maintain an engaging classroom, and a sense of community.



 

 

 



 

 

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