Update: VR English Language Research

It's been a while but that isn't to say that we haven't been working hard on our University College London-funded research project!

Firstly there's an important update the platform that we'll be using for our pedagogical tasks, and that platform is now Mozilla Hubs.

Mozilla Hubs offers the capability to meet and interact in real time with anyone in the word in virtual spaces just through a web browser. The so-called "browser-based" VR or webXR means that it is a hugely accessible way of providing and exploring virtual reality scenes since no downloads of any programs are required (you just share a link to the scene) and you can also explore the 3D scenes via your smartphone and PC without the need for a VR headset. If you have access to a VR headset then it makes the whole experience clearly more immersive, but we are pleased that this easy way of sharing our content for our research study will streamline how the students in our research can go about exploring the various places we're creating.

Here is a short video of the ancient church we've put together in Mozilla Hubs:

The church seen in the video is courtesy of Giovanni Mastronuzzi of the University of Salento's Department of Cultural Heritage. [G. Mastronuzzi, F. Ghio, V. Melissano, Carta archeologica di Vaste – territorio comunale di Poggiardo (Puglia meridionale), BAR I.S. 2939, Oxford 2019].

We are just finishing putting together the second location for our language-learning task experience, and that is the Castel del Monte castle located in southern Italy. We'll publish a quick video of that in a few days here!