Inner-City Arts has partnered with Curiious to explore and support a fresh, innovative approach to education using virtual reality (VR) to engage students. Curiious is a virtual reality education and training company that has used creativity and technology to solve problems for over 20 years. With offices in Sydney, Los Angeles, and New York, the company creates captivating and inspiring education products to empower next-generation learning.
Thanks to the generous support of Irwin J. and Patti Jaeger, the Inner-City Arts and Curiious’ collaboration and exploration is the first of its kind. While virtual reality is normally designed for full individual immersion, the two organizations envision using VR to create more connections among students — not only in Los Angeles, but around the world as well. Inner-City Arts is exploring other international partnerships, utilizing the technology to create collaborations between students in different countries.
The pilot curriculum includes opportunities for students to design communities on Mars, immerse themselves in co-created 360-degree animations, and sing original compositions with other students from around the world. Students, teaching artists, and staff will contribute to ongoing product development and will explore how to wield technology to deepen Social and Emotional Learning in the classroom.
“VR is a technology shown to increase engagement and improve outcomes so we are honored ICA has chosen to integrate our software platform, Curiious IQ, to support collaborative learning in VR. We are super excited to see the results of this collaboration,” says Brett Heil CEO and Founder of Curiious.
In November 2019, Inner-City Arts will be premiering a virtual reality choir, a prototype that engages students internationally to record an original song. Participating groups include students in Los Angeles, New York City, Ecuador, India, Ghana, and China. A viewer will be able to immerse themselves in the middle of more than a hundred students singing together from all around the globe!
“We look forward to creating virtual worlds with and for our students, empowering them to explore and connect to new levels of learning,” says Collette Williams Alleyne, Senior Director of Education at Inner-City Arts.
