The teachers cooperated with local media company OFFshot to make the Half-Life: Alyx VR classes. “They made the magic happen right in our classes!” “A VR studio actually came to our school,” recalls Sut. Still, the lessons took a lot of work behind the scenes. Online learning was made compulsory on March 25th.Ī mere five days later came Szkoła 33’s first foray into VR lessons, with the teachers keen to combine educational material with entertainment value as a way to try and keep children amused at home. Poland went into an early lockdown in an attempt to mitigate the spread of the virus, with schools closing on March 11th, 2020. We also hoped that it would help them with the uncomfortable situation everyone found themselves in – those first few weeks were not easy for kids, being on lockdown in their homes and not able to roam freely.” “The pandemic had just started back then, the schools were closed, and we wanted to interest our students in the classes somehow. “We decided to use VR in lessons because it seemed like a good opportunity to try something new and to engage our students in online classes,” explains Katarzyna Sut, English and Spanish teacher, and webpage administrator. The lessons combined live and pre-recorded material, and were uploaded to Facebook, Twitch, and YouTube A total of six VR sessions in Half-Life: Alyx were made by the school to teach various subjects, with many of the videos lasting over two hours. Then the footage cuts away completely, and Half-Life: Alyx begins.ĭystopia might be correct – but in fact, the game was used by Szkoła 33 to conduct lessons for children in lockdown. Eventually, it fades out to a teacher, who welcomes the children to the lesson.
The camera tracks through the school, taking in rows of empty tables, discarded toys, and unused equipment. I’m watching a video from Szkoła 33, a high school in the city of Poznań, western Poland.