VR
immersive learning
In a world where learning can often feel confined to four walls or screens, here's a throwback to my early days as an early edtech adopter as a former teacher, when I explored how experiential, human-centered design could bring empathy and connection back into education. Using the tools we already had — smartphones, creativity, and a little inspiration from Depeche Mode — we built immersive, student-created VR experiences that let learners walk in each other's shoes, literally and virtually. Proof that meaningful innovation doesn't require massive budgets — just a commitment to honoring the human experience.
#ExperientialLearning #UserCentered #HumanCentered #Empathy #ImmersiveLearning #InnovationInEducation #EdTech #LearningByDoing #StudentDriven #DesignThinking
The Need. Let’s face it — whether boxed inside four literal walls or stuck behind a pixelated Zoom background, modern learning can feel, well... a little drab. Sure, multimedia makes things pop, but at the core, humans are wired to learn best the way we've done since the beginning: by experience. I found early inspiration from programs like Classrooms Without Borders and Do Remember Me Project — both brilliant examples of how stepping outside the classroom (physically or virtually) could unlock a deeper, more visceral kind of learning.
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The realization hit me: if we truly want learners to grow, to connect, we have to build ways for them to experience the world — not just read about it, or click through it. We needed something more real, more human.
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The Solution. By the mid 2010's, I had already become a conference groupie for anything VR-related — from IndieCade to Educators in VR, DevLearn to IEEE VR, ISTEverse to the chaos and wonder of E3 — even VR film festivals (where I may or may not have cried watching a short film about an animated dog).
I knew there were incredible simulation platforms out there, like Mursion, just coming on the market, which gave student teachers a lifeline when in-person classrooms would be shut down years later during covid. But I couldn’t shake this idea: it wasn’t just about simulating — it was about connecting. Real stories. Real experiences.
I remembered my days collaborating with NASA, where as an advising payload engineer, former biochemist - I helped students build micro-labs for space projects that were sent to the International Space Station (...to infinity and beyond!). A former NASA AMES engineer who I worked with once told me that when ..."you’re working in space, you have to set aside national allegiances. You become an international community. Survival of our species depends on global cooperation and empathy". Humanity transcending borders.
Then it hit me. (Cue lightbulb over head).
If we wanted students to build the kind of empathy and collaboration skills they’d need for the future, the future we could only imagine in films like StarWars — to really feel connected across cultures, experiences, and backgrounds — we needed immersive, human-driven experiences. And who better to tell their stories... than the students themselves? I was on a quest to make learning meaningful. Inspired by Depeche Mode's 'Walking in My Shoes", which is what we entitled the project, I set the gears in motion.
To Infinity and beyond. With no big tech budget (and no magic NASA money either), I turned to the tech we did have: smartphones and available VR headsets.
I asked students to create a short VR experience of their own lives
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A first-person view of soccer practice
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Piano lessons
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Their walk home or to an after-school job
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Any slice of life they wanted others to understand about them​
We leveraged simple 3D VR stitching software to create their clips, and we posted them onto our classroom LMS platform on secure hosting. Then the magic happened: students "gallery walked" through each other's lives — sometimes through an HTC Vive, sometimes just a humble Google Cardboard viewer held together by duct tape and dreams.
This wasn’t about high-end VR glitz. It was about stepping into someone else's world, even for just a few minutes. It was about building bridges — walking a literal mile (or afternoon shift, or soccer scrimmage) in someone else's shoes.
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And the best part? The learners loved it.
This was long before TikTok made 10-second life clips the norm. Students were stunned by how much they learned about one another — the pressures, the passions, the completely different worlds they all inhabited while still sitting side-by-side in class.
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Take home lesson. You don’t need million-dollar VR labs or endless tech budgets to create meaningful, immersive learning, though both are always nice.
Sometimes, all you need is:
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A little ingenuity
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The tools you already have
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A willingness to adapt
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And a playlist of Depeche Mode for inspiration
At the heart of it, learning is (and well... products in general), need to remain a human-driven venture. By focusing on experience-driven learning, we expanded minds, broke down walls, and taught students one of the most important skills they'll ever need now and in the future — empathy.
No spaceship required.
