We have received a Mozilla Research gift of $45,000 to research the use of virtual reality in online education. Specifically, this grant will focus on content-agnostic applications of virtual reality, such as virtual lecture-watching parties, office hours, student lounges, and poster sessions. The goal is to find applications of virtual reality that can span across classes and levels, rather than specific applications to certain content areas.

Blair MacIntyre, Principal Research Scientist in the Mixed Reality team at Mozilla and a professor in the the College of Computing’s School of Interactive Computing, is collaborating on the project. Ishaani Mittal will work on the project as a graduate research assistant, and Akhil Mohanan will work on the project for his Master’s in Human-Computer Interaction project.