The Basics & Limitations of using Rec Room in Oculus Quest to Teach (Read the Description, too)
33This video is targeted towards teachers who might want to use an Oculus Quest to film a lesson in Rec Room VR. The entire video was filmed within my own Oculus Quest (as opposed to the Rift I usually use).
The Oculus Quest is nice because it's the cheapest form of manipulative VR available (about 400$). It's a really good 'starter' headset, because it doesn't require a gaming PC like most other current VR headsets. It has several limitations though, which I go over in the video.
The video itself focuses on using the free game/app: RecRoom. RecRoom is a free VR game for PC, iPhone, iPad, Playstation VR, and most VR headsets. I often use RecRoom to film my VR lessons, and I've gotten some questions about how to do it by other teachers. It's got a lot of customization abilities, a ton of games, and has solid potential for teachers considering filming a lesson in VR.
For this video, and apparently for all future Quest videos, I had to record the dialogue separately... which is one of the previously stated limitations. In essence: you'll need a separate device to record your 'spoken narration' as you do things in the Oculus Quest. I didn't technically realize that before starting, so all of my narration is recorded over.
------------------------
To summarize & add to the video:
The limitations of the Quest relative to PC VR are:
No 3rd Person Camera - Since it's first person only, you have to keep your head really stable (it's the camera). Too much movement may make it 'motion sickness' for some audience members. One work-around might be to have 2 teachers: one filming and the other acting. The 'filmer' would not need their own VR headset, they could be on a PC, iPad, or possibly iPhone.
No natural voice recorder - so you'll have to record yourself talking over the video, or simultaneously using a 2nd device like a cellphone.
Slightly worse graphics - Although this isn't a really big issue since the writing is clear.
No Screen Sharing - Even if you have screen sharing permissions enabled on your Rec Room account, you can't 'share a browser' to show documents or slide shows on an Oculus Quest.
------------------------
What you can do:
You can teach in digital classroom environments limited only by your imagination.
You can spawn white boards and markers on demand. Writing in Rec Room is pretty solid (I give it a B+)
You can spawn shapes, sculpt and write in 3 dimensions using the maker pen. I've found this can be unintuitive for people new to it, so I've included the very basics in this video: spawning things, simple changes, and unlinking objects.
You can teach to & with other people live in Rec Room. Students can be on their own devices of either an iPad, iPhone, Playstation VR, PC, or other VR headset.