Schell Games LLC — Department of Education SBIR Phase II: 91990019R0012

Description

History Maker VR is a playful virtual reality (VR) content-creation tool that allows students to embody historical characters in immersive settings, record performances featuring those characters, and share their performance files to demonstrate material mastery. History Maker VR is designed to scaffold creative storytelling, and to encourage embodied learning and for students to take pride in content creation. Students will use a variety of props (e.g., books, parchment, quills) during their VR performances and can play back their movements and voice recording from the Director's Booth in the audience. To access notes, talking points, or historical facts while in VR, students will pre-load text into a folder and then read notes on a teleprompter inside the environment. To share performances, content will be in a format that can be projected on a monitor for a class to watch or will be exported to a video file to be submitted as reports. History Maker VR intends to increase student engagement and knowledge of U.S. history and civics, their interest and enthusiasm for studying history and civics, and their historical thinking skills.