Highly Effective Learning with “VRschool”:
Beyond 360-degree and 3D

Tatefumi Kanaya
CEO, TEN UP Inc.

1. Current ICT education and VR education
Most people think of VR as a new technology, but actually,
the concept of VR has been around for over 100 years and has
been researched by many companies and research facilities.
However, it began to attract more attention even from the businessworld in 2016, which is considered by some to be the birth year of
VR. This was because in 2016, VR hardware and communications
environments (Wi-Fi) had consolidated, and VR moved from a
research level to a practical level.
Much research had already been done on VR, so ourcompany, along with many others, quickly began creating services
and commercializing them. However, before VR arrived, theeducation industry had not yet progressed developing ICT
education using PCs and other technologies. Many opinions andreasons why ICT education had not advanced have been given,
but we wanted to know the truth, so we got involved attempting
to introduce ICT measures in management of our own tutoring
school.
It was then we realized why introducing ICT at the classroom
level would not succeed. We found that those working in the
education industry were very aware and focused on issues such as
educational ideals and how to interact with students. Thus, webegan to feel there might be hesitancy toward the idea of using IT
to improve efficiency in education.
As such, it would be difficult to expand ICT education fromjust the perspective of technologists, by replacing materials on
paper or a blackboard using PCs or tablets in an attempt toimprove efficiency. The perspective of instructors needs to beincorporated somehow, with their warmth and enthusiasm foreducation.
In other words, it is important to create environments using
technology that will involve the instructors, so they can be more
active than they have been before.

2. How does VR change the brain?
Prof. Jeremy Bailenson of Stanford University has written,“Experience on Demand: What Virtual Reality Is, How It Works,
and What It Can Do?” Much interesting research has beenreported about this as well, but he writes that education andtraining using VR can increase accuracy of understanding by up
to 25%.
He also writes that when data on the posture of students
receiving classes in VR space was analyzed, it was possible toestimate the grades of each student, before they took a test.
Thus, there are many aspects of VR that we can look forward
to.
Further, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Scienceand Technology (MEXT) Research Cooperation Council(Science and Technology Policy), also has a study group for
research on “Neuroscience and Education.”
It is also well known that when dopamine levels increase,ability to concentrate also increases.
VR is a technology that can affect the visual senses, and in
humans, vision is the sense that brings the most information to thebrain. In other words, VR is able to both affect the visual senses
and to evoke higher levels of concentration.
Currently, various uses of VR are being considered, but themost common is for education and training, and we can expect it
to bring major changes in the form of innovation in the educationindustry.

3. Does VR create new communities?
One promising use of VR besides education is forcommunities: so-called “social VR.” We can look forward tobeing able to communicate in virtual spaces, having conversations,holding events, and creating other new forms of communication.
In fact, the University of Tokyo has already held classes using
a social VR platform. The benefit of VR for education is that,
although people are known to change with their environment
or customs, it is difficult for people to make dramatic changes totheir environment in daily life. With VR, it becomes easy for themto put themselves into any environment.
For example, one can work on communication with foreigners
as you would when studying overseas in a VR environment with
only foreigners and it is easier to become a professional in a field
when in the community of that particular profession.
Another unique case of VR research is being done at the
University of Barcelona, called, “Effects on cognitive function ofembodiment through VR.” The research examined the effects ofembodying Einstein, and found that participants achieved elevatedscores on cognitive function tests.
It may seem strange that participants achieved higher scores
just by impersonating Einstein, but when examining participants
for whom the effect was particularly strong, they found that theeffects were stronger among participants that showed lower selfesteem in their daily lives. In other words, when people with low

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self-esteem, who were not manifesting their own abilities, took on
the persona of Einstein, as a symbol of smart people, they seemed
better able to demonstrate their own abilities.

4. VRschool (School education case study)

So far, we have discussed technology that supports teachers
doing more for students, to promote ICT education in the
education industry. The assumption was that supporting theteachers is what is important. We touched on the potential of VR
technology regarding its brain-science and community effects.
Here we discuss some background and examples from ourcompany’s VRschool initiative.
[Example 1: Elementary school, grade 5 (VR science class)](1)	Learn about compasses and the movement of the earth andsun in a VR classroom (Figure 1).
(2) Move the VR space to a park (Figure 2).
(3) Ask the question, “Which way is north?”■ Figure 1(2) and (3), the students were able to enjoy it like a quiz show, andwere able to move around, looking for various hints in the VR
garden, so it was more like a field trip.
The answer to the question (3) is that, they will find a clock ifthey look around in the garden, they can see that it is morning bylooking at the clock, and guess that in the morning the sun should
be in the east and that shadows would point toward the west.
Solving such a riddle with the teacher creates a class that is “better
than real” for the students.
This type of learning methodology is called active learningin the education industry. In ordinary learning, classes would beheld for each unit separately, such as compasses or the movementof the sun, and students would understand them each in theirheads, but it is difficult to increase students’ ability to combine andapply them both together as was done here, when they derived thecompass directions in an empty garden.
We have found that with VR classes, we can increase students’ability to apply knowledge, to formulate their own questions andhypotheses and to think about them.
[Example 2: Elementary school, grade six (VR class content
for Japanese language)](1)	Lesson in a VR classroom on the haiku, “The old pond/A frog
leaps in/Sound of the water.” (Basho).
(2) Move to various ponds in VR, watch scenes of frogs jumping
into water (Figure 3).
(3)	Return to the VR classroom, and consider the meaning of ahaiku.
■ Figure 3■ Figure 2

The teachers also join the class in VR space as an avatar, andgives the lesson, so their essential role is not lost, and the lesson
can be more interesting than in an ordinary classroom. The
students responded well, and the teachers were also able to utilize
their strengths.
We now consider reactions to the lesson. Although part (1)was online, the children enjoyed it, and for the important parts

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As with Example 1, students were able to have an enjoyable
class with guidance from the teacher. Incidentally, the Japaneselanguage haiku classes are generally thought to be very difficult toteach, and are not popular with the students.
In part (2) of this lesson, many of the students reacted, saying
things like, “The frog jumped into the pond!” so the teacher canthen say, “Okay, let’s look at some scenes with frogs jumping in,”and move to other locations. Various scenes with frogs jumping
into the water were reproduced, such as a pond near a summer
fireworks festival, another near a residential area, and anotherquiet one with no one around. VR is well suited to reproducing
various scenes in this way.
In this case, there were various reactions to experiencing
scenes of frogs jumping into a pond, focusing on different aspects
such as the frog, or the type of pond.
The haiku is “The old pond/A frog leaps in/Sound of thewater,” so we focused on the water sound and experienced various
pond scenes again. This showed that unless it was quiet, we could
not hear the sound of the frog jumping into the pond. This madeus realize that the “plop” sound of the frog jumping in is pretty
quiet.
So what was Matsuo Basho saying with this haiku? This iswhere teachers would apply their classroom expertise. We will givean answer below, but in a class, the teacher would discuss withthe students, convey important ways of thinking about it and help
them improve their Japanese language abilities.
The frog was not important in what Basho was trying to say,
but rather, a quietness that would enable one to hear the sound of
the frog entering the water.
Discussing this in a VR classroom creates a lesson completely
different than earlier haiku lessons, changing how students grasp
it and conveying how interesting haiku can be.
[Summary]
Example 1 emphasized the visual, while the lesson in
Example 2 was designed with awareness of sound. Both lessons
utilized features only possible with VR, and the teacher was able
to hold lessons that attracted the students’ attention like neverbefore.
Here, the most important feature of VR lessons is the ability
to “convey.” In conventional lessons, teachers give proper lessons
where it is important to “convey” the relevant ideas, and students
listen to what the teacher says, imagine it in their own way andcome to an understanding of the content. However, with VR, thesame scene can be shared, with a 360-degree view, and what theteacher wants to convey can become clear at a glance.

5. VRschool lesson planning

We discussed two examples of VR lessons that we thinkshow how they can be engaging. We will now discuss how lesson
planning can be done for VR lessons.
Considering that lessons go from elementary school touniversity, there is a great range of content. Not all lessons can beplanned to use the five senses as was done in the earlier examples.
Examples of when the five senses can be utilized easily include
when ideas in science or math can be illustrated (visually) as in
Example 1, or experienced bodily, as with a story in a language
class. Another example would be reproducing (visually) an English
conversation scenario.
On the other hand, there are topics in learning that cannot be
visualized. While the arithmetic we learn in elementary school
is often used in everyday life and can be visualized easily, more

abstract concepts arise such as negative numbers or square roots,
which are not used often in daily life. It may be difficult torepresent a square root in 360 degrees, so perhaps this concept is
not suited to a VR lesson.
To review, the two effects provided by VR are “brain science”
and “community”.
For a given topic, where learning is done is an important factor.
We conducted experiments examining the extent to which
community affects learning outcomes.
[Experiment 1: Solve a complex mathematics problem withmath colleagues throughout the country](1) Prepare a difficult mathematics problem in VR space.
(2)	Gather mathematics enthusiasts from throughout the country
and have them solve the problem together.
＊ Also perform the same using a Web meeting system.
[Experiment 2: Students from regional high-schools
consult university students in Tokyo about how to get into
university](1)	Gather high-school students in VR space, together withstudents from the university in Tokyo where they hope toattend.
(2)	Have the university students show the high students theschool, club facilities, and living arrangements at theuniversity.
＊ Also perform the same using a Web meeting system.
In both of these experiments, participants felt a deeper senseof connection with the community than they did when using the
Web meeting system. A reason for this is that for Experiments 1
and 2 with the Web meeting system, the person speaking becomesthe center of attention while the others feel like spectators. Thisoccurs even for the person holding the Web meeting.
On the other hand, with VR, participants are in the same
online space and feel like they are participating together. As
such, community use is well suited to VR. One of the university
students in Experiment 2 said that, “rather than showing
photographs of my home, it felt more like they came to visit myhome.”

6. Practical examples from outside theeducation industry[Example 1: Staff training at a construction company
At a certain construction company, several site managers
were expected to retire over the coming several years. Since theconstruction company revenues are determined by the number ofsites, cultivating younger employees that are able to manage newsites had become an urgent task.
However, in construction, site managers are cultivated throughexperience on many sites, so educating new managers is nota simple task. As such, we used our VR school system for thefollowing three tasks.

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(1)	Have employees at sites throughout the country capture 360
degree photos of everyday issues and errors.
(2)	U se our system for online schooling of site-manager
candidates.
(3)	Have candidates look at many examples of issues occurring onsites every day.
■ Figure 4

Through these activities, we were able to simulate many
real on-site issues. Moreover, these simulations were not textbook experience, but actual accidents and incidents that occurred
throughout the country at real sites, providing experience usefulfor practical work. Normally, employees can only experience
work at a few sites per year, but by simulating site work using
our system, they can gain experience from 100 sites or more.
Participants have said they feel like they have gained 20 years
worth of experience in a single year.
[Example 2: Fan event hosted by a talent agency]
Due to COVID-19, talent agencies could no longer hold fan
events, so a major component of their business disappeared andthe fans no longer had opportunities to meet the personalities.
As such, we used our VR system to hold events where these
personalities could make appearances as avatars.
In theory, fans can see these personalities with higher-quality
video on television or YouTube using an app, but in a VR space, we
can provide fans with a more satisfying feeling of being with themrather than just seeing them.
This example demonstrates the community effects of VR.

interesting lessons with 360-degree and 3D materials, we willenter a world where we can immediately visit any community, in
any country, whenever we like.
Returning to the issue described at the beginning of thisarticle, ICT in the world of education has not yet captured theenthusiasm of instructors, but we believe that VR is a technologythat can advance ICT, while leaving this enthusiasm intact.
Education is a relay, with human instructors passing on thebaton of enthusiasm and person-to-person communication, which
is a precious and essential thing.
While writing this article, we reviewed use of ICT in the
education industry. Why is it that we say “ICT in education,”rather than “IT in education?”
IT: Information Technology
ICT: Information and Communication Technology
The answer is in the words themselves; that communication isvery important.
We can enjoy lessons with 360-degree images and 3D, andhave positive communication. Communication is really “social
relations” and communication makes things happen.
ICT education has been a term used by education providers.
Should they use paper learning materials or a tablet? Both are
media that providers can use, and the students do not even use theword ICT. However, students will enter and enjoy a VR classroomon their own, and VR is a word that both the instructors and thestudents use.
It has long been said that ICT will not become widespread,but we believe that VR is a technology that can open it up.

Cover Art

7. VR in the future

The technology singularity moves quickly. We have been
expecting education and communication with VR to take a little
longer, but it has become possible before we even realized it. Even
communication capacity, which is an issue at this stage, can be
expected to be resolved soon with technologies like 5G. Whenthat happens, rather than the mainly just 360-degree images
as we have now, we will finally be able to use a combination of
360 degree live and recorded video and multiple other images
and video without difficulty. Then, beyond being able to have8

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Maple Leaves at Tsutenkyo (Famous Places of
Kyoto)
Utagawa Hiroshige (1797~1858)
Collection of the Art Research Center (ARC)
Ritsumeikan University
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