Interactive and Immersive Learning Using 360° Virtual Reality Contents on Mobile Platforms

Recent advances in mobile virtual reality (VR) devices have paved the way for various VR applications in education. This paper presents a novel authoring framework for mobile VR contents and a play-based learning model for marine biology education. For interactive and immersive mobile VR contents, we develop a multilayer 360 degrees VR representation with image-based interactions such as mesh deformation and water simulation, which enable users to realistically interact with 360 degrees panoramic contents without consuming excessive computational resources. On the basis of this representation, we design and implement play-based learning scenarios to increase the interactivity and immersion of users. Then, we verify the effectiveness of our educational scenarios using a user study in terms of user-created VR contents, interactivity, and immersion. The results show that more experienced elements in VR contents improve the immersion of users and make them more actively involved.