Virtual Reality (VR) is a computer-based technology that provides visual, aural and tactile stimuli of a virtual world generated in real time. This is usually achieved by isolating the user from the sensorial signals of the real world, thus creating the immersion effect. The VR technology came up from forty years of development in areas such as computer science, electronics and psychology. From the beginning, VR has been used for simulation and training, mainly in the military arena. Therefore, the use of this technology was justified not because of its added value as an educational tool but mainly because military VR simulators allow to test different situations without putting extremely expensive material and personnel in high risk situations. Due to cost reasons, the use of VR technology was associated in the beginning to scientific military visualization, and entertainment. Other applications were only made possible with the decrease in equipment costs in the past few years. One of these newer areas of VR applications is education, centered mainly on the merging of education with entertainment, supporting the birthday to a new field “edutainment”.

Research and design issues

Much research on how to design safe and realistic VRs to facilitate training

• flying simulators
• help people overcome phobias (e.g., spiders, talking in public)

Design issues

• how best to navigate through them (e.g., first versus third person)
• how to control interactions and movements (e.g., use of head and body movements)
• how best to interact with information (e.g., use of keypads, pointing, joystick buttons);
• level of realism to aim for to engender a sense of presence