Total immersion

In biology classes at the High School Affiliated to Renmin University of China in Beijing, students don't use pictures, videos or even microscopes to learn about the structure of blood cells in circulatory systems.

Instead, each student puts on a headset to visualize its structure as if they were walking inside a cell, an immersive experience realized only thanks to the rapidly developing technology of virtual reality.

Nian Weifeng, a biology teacher with the high school, says this fresh experience intrigues students and helps them to better understand abstract concepts like the structure of a molecule.

"It's good for those with poor spatial abilities," he says.

Nian started offering the 10-minute VR lessons as part of his class for K-11 students two years ago. It's a totally different way of teaching from his previous experience. The school added VR to its list of elective courses in 2012. To apply it to the teaching of basic courses is still a very recent and innovative step.

In fact, many schools in China have already set up VR classrooms to join the growing trend of the "next evolution in education" after the central government widely promoted and encouraged use of the cutting-edge technology, which is said to be one of the key future revolutions in technology along with big data and artificial intelligence.

Zhou Mingquan, director of the Virtual Reality Application Engineering Research Center of the Ministry of Education, says that the ministry has issued a host of regulations to support VR applications in schools and colleges in recent years. It has written VR into its 10-year plan from 2011 to 2020, including the goal to establish 1,000 VR rooms in colleges by 2020.

Primary and middle schools in Qingdao and Weihai in Shandong province began to set up VR classrooms in 2016 to allow students access to the technology. About 2,000 schools in Zunyi in Guizhou province will be equipped with VR classrooms by the end of this year.

"It's an inevitable trend in this era of information. People are excited to embrace eye-catching technology in education," said Zhou at the education forum of the 2018 World Conference on the Virtual Reality Industry held from Oct 19 to 21 in Nanchang, Jiangxi province, a city that aims to build the biggest virtual reality hub in China. The forum attracted many school directors and teachers from around the country.