Marion schools demo VR carts, staff outline classroom uses and subscription limits

The Marion City Schools assistant superintendent demonstrated the district's virtual-reality (VR) carts at the March 17 board meeting and described how staff are using the devices in classrooms.

The district has five VR carts rotated among schools, with current heavier usage in elementary classrooms for culminating activities tied to units such as CKLA. The assistant superintendent and staff demonstrated devices and described content: Holocaust and Pearl Harbor environments for history lessons, biomes and 3D objects for science, and experiential trips such as a virtual Washington, D.C. tour. "These are education based. They don't have any of those type of games on them," the presenter said.

Staff said the devices use subscription content that must be renewed (the current arrangement is near a multi-year renewal point) and that some desirable materials are paid add-ons. Teachers who participated in pilot sessions reported very high student engagement; staff noted the devices are not full consumer headsets (for example, not Oculus in capability) and have limits on content and performance.

The district has trained staff, held sessions with 30–40 teachers at a time and is exploring options to create local VR content by using district-owned 360 cameras. The assistant superintendent said the next steps are determining which subscription(s) to renew and improving teacher ease of use so more teachers can run experiences independently.

Board members and staff discussed using VR for career-technical exposure and giving students experiences they may not otherwise have, like foreign travel or museum tours. Staff said they plan to keep devices updated and consider building district-created content in future years.