Abstract:

During the pandemic situation with COVID19, Slovak primary schools mostly taught at a distance. Pupils perceived the combined and distance form of education differently. They managed the short-term change quite well and it can be said that they were fine. They enjoyed the use of new teaching aids and digital learning technologies. After a long separation of children from school and from classmates and friends, symptoms of discomfort and trauma began to manifest.

In addition to social ties with classmates and teachers, they also lacked the opportunity to move around in familiar areas of the school. With the help of technology, we wanted to enable students to at least visit their school virtually, walk around familiar spaces, carry out their school tasks in the classroom, in laboratories and in other special facilities of the school. We created a story that drew the student into it and motivated his efforts to successfully solve the assigned tasks. The student moved around the school, solved the assigned subtasks and received partial rewards for the correct answers, thanks to which he gradually fulfilled the overall mean task.

The first tasks we gave to the students were focused on repeating the chemistry curriculum, so in addition to fulfilling the tasks of the game, the students consolidated the already acquired knowledge. We wanted to use the elements of gamification in teaching and support the acquisition to consolidate new knowledge in a playful way.

We also created similar applications for selected thematic units in several other professional classrooms, where we connected students using interactive links to virtual simulation experiments. The student was able to observe and interactively change the conditions of the experiment, thus also gaining and consolidating his knowledge in a playful way.

The article describes in detail the individual applications, the tasks that the students solved and also how the students perceived this way of education.

Keywords:

Virtual reality, virtual school, simulation models, simulation experiments, virtual experiments, setting experimental parameters.